To listen to its advocates, SB 50 will cure the housing crisis in California by taking land-use authority away from local officials who have been unwilling to build housing. Sacramento knows best, they say.

Here’s the thing. While Sacramento politicians debate whether to remove one of the most important responsibilities from cities – the ability to decide where and how to grow our communities – those of us in local government are actually putting roofs over people’s heads.

In my city of Burlingame, over the last two years we have either built, approved or have in process more than 2,000 new housing units. That is an increase of over 15% in our housing stock – the equivalent of San Francisco approving 60,000 units (they approved about 12,000 over the last two years). Moreover, we adjusted our General Plan to convert 80 acres of commercial land to housing, adding thousands more units to our city in the next decade.

And it is not just Burlingame.  Drive around Mountain View, San Carlos, Belmont, South San Francisco – there’s new housing being built up and down the Peninsula — with more on the way.

Sure, there is an occasional hiccup — like when San Bruno or Cupertino decided to hit reset buttons on big developments. But I am confident those communities will approve these projects with plenty of housing in a way that works best for them. The way it should be.

It might not matter except that SB 50 distracts us from legislation that could actually help with housing, like bringing back redevelopment agencies. Because even if SB 50 were adopted, I doubt it would yield much actual building.

Think about it: SB 50 mandates rezoning of single-family home neighborhoods near transit. Most home lots are about 6,000 square feet. To build a reasonable apartment building, a developer would need to aggregate at least two, probably four parcels — expensive and time consuming. And what will the developer build to recoup his investment on this high priced land? Luxury condos.

So after years of work, and taking four single-family homes offline (or eight with ADUs), the developer may create 10-15 costly condos. Hardly a scalable solution and no help for teachers or firefighters looking to stay in our communities.

What could Sacramento be doing with its time that’s actually productive to promote housing? A number of things:

• Sacramento could adjust tax policy to encourage a higher percentage of housing units in market rate developments be built as “affordable.” Right now, the only way to develop substantial affordable housing is to build on public land where the land price is effectively free. Sacramento should create tax rebates to developers if they reserve more units in market rate projects for teachers and working families.

• Sacramento could create a revolving loan fund for acquisition of older apartment buildings by non-profits. A massive wave of displacement is on its way as older mom-and-pop landowners decide to sell out. If they sell to profit-maximizing investors, then renters beware. We could change that dynamic by helping non-profits bid and own those properties when they come up for sale. That means cutting red tape for the non-profits and creating incentives to sellers – for example, rebates on capital gains – to sell to non-profits.

•  Finally, Sacramento could help school districts build more teacher housing by removing the financial risk from school boards. School districts are on especially thin financial ice right now and, as fiduciaries, board members are wary of becoming developers. Sacramento could guarantee against construction and rental risk, making it much easier for boards to say “yes” to new teacher housing.

Yes, Sacramento, we have a housing crisis. Our cities, big and small, get it, and we are doing something about it. Let’s build our communities together.

Michael Brownrigg, a 10-year Burlingame City Councilman, is a candidate for the California State Senate District 13 seat. The district stretches from Brisbane to Sunnyvale.