Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, left, talks with Sen. Holly Mitchell, D-Los Angeles, at the Capitol.Members of the Legislature certainly talk a good game about solving the housing crisis, insisting they’re eager to speed up residential construction, spare cash-strapped tenants from surging rental prices and stop poor people from sliding into homelessness. But talk is as cheap as the cost of inaction is high. And on Tuesday, the Senate Transportation and Housing Committee managed to accomplish both by voting to kill a bill that could have made a real dent in the housing crisis and put a much-needed damper on a statewide ballot initiative to expand rent control by repealing the 1995 Costa-Hawkins act. Only four members of the 13-member Senate Transportation and Housing Committee voted for Sen. Scott Wiener’s Senate Bill 827, which would have forced cities to allow more apartment buildings to be built near transit stops. Democrats voted against it, as did Republicans. Their biggest gripe? That SB 827 had the nerve to wrest control away from local officials around the state, bypassing strict zoning codes that shun density by only allowing the construction of single-family homes near train and bus stops. This is especially true in cities along the coast, where rental prices happen to be the highest and housing is in the shortest supply.