Tracking the laws shaping our neighborhoods.
California Legislation Spotlight:
SB 79
California’s housing laws continue to evolve, with new legislation expanding and reshaping how earlier bills are applied. SB 79, passed in 2024, created sweeping new requirements for housing near transit. Two newer bills — SB 677 and SB 908 — build on SB 79 and could significantly expand its reach.
This page explains what each bill does, how they interact, and why these changes matter for local communities.
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Housing legislation moves fast — and every bill shapes how our neighborhoods grow. For a full list of active housing proposals across California, visit our trusted partner’s legislative tracker:
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Status: Enacted
SB 79 is a state housing law that allows higher-density residential development near certain transit stops.
Under SB 79:
Cities must allow mid-rise apartment buildings (generally 6–8 stories) near qualifying transit stations.
Parking requirements may be significantly reduced or eliminated.
Local zoning rules are overridden if they conflict with the state mandate.
Which cities are affected depends entirely on whether they have a qualifying transit stop and which tier that stop falls into under state definitions.
SB 79 was promoted as a way to reduce driving and increase housing supply, but it also places substantial planning, zoning, and infrastructure responsibilities on local governments without guaranteed state funding.
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Status: Passed the Senate; pending in the Assembly
SB 677 is a follow-up bill to SB 79. While described as a technical or “tightening” measure, SB 677 changes the definitions that determine which transit stations qualify under SB 79.
Key impacts of SB 677 include:
Expanding what counts as qualifying rail service by adding “intercity rail” to eligibility definitions.
Changing how service frequency thresholds are calculated.
Potentially expanding the SB 79 map to include more stations and more cities.
Why this matters
These definition changes can pull additional communities into SB 79 — even if they were not originally intended to be included.
For smaller cities, being newly classified under SB 79 can trigger:
Accelerated zoning and permitting requirements
Major planning workloads on short timelines
Pressure on existing infrastructure, such as roads, stormwater systems, water capacity, and emergency access
SB 677 also includes no reimbursement language, meaning cities are expected to absorb these new responsibilities and costs using local funds.
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Status: Introduced as an intent/placeholder bill
SB 908 signals that additional changes to SB 79 may be forthcoming. The bill has been introduced to allow for future “technical and clarifying” amendments to transit-oriented housing rules.
As introduced, SB 908 suggests:
Possible future expansion of qualifying transit facilities, including ferry terminals
Continued adjustments to eligibility definitions that determine where state housing mandates apply
While SB 908 does not yet contain full policy language, it indicates that SB 79 may continue to expand beyond its original scope.
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What it is: AB 130 (2025) is a package/budget-trailer style housing reform focused on streamlining approvals for qualifying infill housing. It creates new CEQA exemptions for certain infill projects, requires environmental due diligence (e.g., Phase I assessments in some cases), and makes permanent several SB 330 procedural limits (see below). It was enacted as part of 2025 housing reforms.
How it’s changing housing & neighborhoods now:
Faster approvals / fewer CEQA delays: Projects that meet AB 130’s strict eligibility rules can avoid lengthy CEQA litigation and environmental review, shortening timelines and lowering developer costs — this produces faster ground-breaking for qualifying infill projects.
Less litigation about process, more about scope: Because CEQA hurdles are narrowed for qualifying projects, opponents are shifting to other levers — design, local code issues, and political pressure — to influence or block projects.
Environmental safeguards & limits: AB 130 includes guardrails (site size, density, surrounding uses, and environmental due-diligence requirements) so that the exemptions aren’t universal; that said, some neighborhood activists worry the exemptions reduce residents’ tools to contest projects.
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What it is: SB 330 (the Housing Crisis Act of 2019) forbids local governments from downzoning or creating new rules that would reduce the legal capacity for housing, caps how local approvals and hearings can delay housing, and generally tightens limits on local changes that would reduce housing production. Many of its limits were temporary but AB 130 and related 2025 measures have made several key provisions permanent or extended.
How it’s changing housing & neighborhoods now:
Stops downzoning and rolling back housing capacity: Localities can’t reduce the amount of allowed housing below previously approved levels without triggering legal exposure — that’s preserved planned density in many places.
Limits procedural delay: SB 330 introduced rules (limits on hearings, faster processing) that have reduced some administrative delay — developers report quicker timelines, though implementation varies by jurisdiction. AB 130 made many of these procedural limits permanent.
Unintended local consequences: Because state rules constrain local discretion, examples have appeared where large projects are being pursued that clash with local planning visions (recent coverage shows very large projects moving forward by relying on state streamlining and density bonuses). That has intensified debates about neighborhood character vs. production.
Local San Diego Policies in Focus
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ADU Bonus Program
San Diego’s ADU Bonus Program allows property owners to build multiple accessory dwelling units (ADUs) on a single lot if some are set aside as affordable. The policy was designed to increase housing supply quickly by encouraging “backyard homes.
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Community Plan Updates
Neighborhood planning documents are being rewritten to pack in density without addressing the basics — like roads, schools, and evacuation routes. Communities like Pacific Beach and Clairemont are seeing growth without the support systems to make it safe or livable.
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Complete Communities
Complete Communities is a City of San Diego program that lets developers build taller and denser housing projects if they set aside a portion of units as affordable. It was designed to increase housing supply and encourage transit-oriented development.
NFABC HOUSING POLICY POSITION STATEMENT
THE REALITY
1. Real estate is and always has been a capital asset. Investment in real estate is driven by long-term profit potential.
2. The housing rental and for-sale markets operate separately. Rental rates in San Diego and nationally have stabilized over the past few years due to high levels of investment in new rental housing. For sale housing costs has continued to increase due to higher interest rates and constrained supply, conditions which should loosen over the next year. California is an outlier in both rental and ownership housing affordability - we need to change our system to be more like other parts of the country.
3. Wall Street corporations entered the single-family market (market includes all individually owned homes whether one unit or condo) after the 2008 Great Recession, when millions of foreclosures and little buyer demand created an historic profit opportunity for investors with capital.
4. Wall Street single family home ownership peaked around 2015 and has been steadily decreasing ever since. Corporations own 2% of single-family homes in the US. Total investor ownership (mostly mom and pop investors) peaked at about 15% in 2015 and dropped to 10% in 2024 (US Census Bureau American Community Survey). San Diego is on the high end due to the higher cost of entry favoring higher net worth individuals and businesses.
5. Housing Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) almost exclusively operate large, well-managed apartment complexes. They sell stock and represent an excellent opportunity for small investors to enter the real estate market. They represent a relatively small fraction of the apartment rental market which is dominated by mom-and-pop landlords.
6. Rent control is the worst long-term solution for housing affordability. It suppresses new supply by reducing capital return and shifting rental housing investment to other cities. Economists across the political spectrum are nearly unanimous on this point. It is therefore no surprise that the strongest rent control is in the most expensive rental markets – e.g. New York City, San Francisco, Santa Monica.
7. San Diego's rental market is relatively affordable compared to the recommended HUD standard. The median rent is close to 30% of the median household income (State and Federal standard for affordable housing cost) in San Diego. A building boom in apartments has stabilized rents and should continue for the next couple of years as over 10,000 units under construction hit the market (San Diego Tribune). The slow drift down of rents will likely result in lower apartment construction going forward as potential future investment returns drop.
8. More building does result in greater affordability. States with much higher per capita housing construction (Florida, Texas, Tennessee) experience much lower rents and home prices even in the face of much higher population growth – units built per capita in those states is 2.5 to 3 times that of California (US Bureau of Labor Statistics Building Permit Report); median rents in those states are 25% to 44% lower and median home prices are 52% to 61% lower than California (US Census American Community Survey; Redfin).
9. We need smarter, planned growth, not the reckless, scattershot housing policies slanted to special interests that Sacramento and City Hall offer as quick solutions. There are no quick solutions, and most of what has been offered aren't solutions at all. It took decades to get where we are today.
10. Trickle down affordability does occur but it is unlikely to do much more in San Diego than keep market rate housing affordable at the median income (half of the units affordable at incomes below that rate, but likely between 80 and 100% of median). The market is unlikely to provide units affordable below 80%, unless San Diego becomes Detroit or Cleveland with a decimated economy and a massive surplus of legacy housing.
11. Most households below 80% of median income pay more than 50% of their income on rent. That is why those households are and should continue to be the focus government housing programs.
12. San Diego can and has done a lot of smart, planned growth through updates to community plans, adopted with full environmental review, public hearing input, and transit-oriented development (not Complete Communities) programs that allow slight increase in Floor to Area Ratio (FAR) and relaxed standards for 30% of base density on site as affordable.
NFABC supports the following positive housing agenda:
1. Reasonable tenant protections and relocation assistance for displaced responsible tenants.
2. Eviction prevention assistance for tenants with short-term financial distress.
3. Public notice for all Bonus ADU and other housing incentive program projects to provide transparency building a constituency with responsible/balanced incentives and identify pressure points for code revisions to improve trust and outcomes of the system.
4. Support more transparent community plan updates with full public participation and environmental review by providing additional City resources, including State and Federal grants, to expand the number of plan updates. Potential resources include a community plan update fee on all planning/building applications.
5. Encourage responsible small lot single family and ADU subdivision standards to increase supply of more affordable for-sale single family housing.
6. Simplify subdivision standards for condominiums to expand multiple family ownership opportunities that balance developer and future homeowner concerns.
7. Consolidate city affordable housing incentive programs into a single program to reduce confusion and better balance interests and increase certainty and trust for both developers and neighbors.
8. Support increased government affordable housing resources to subsidize targeted and innovative housing programs like Section 8, land trusts and gap financing for lower income families, handicapped and seniors (may also include programs that make shared rentals easier for able bodied single adults). Potential sources are existing impact fees on new construction, bond issues, transfer fees, etc, all requiring ample public discussion and support.
9. Support State legislation that:
Protects local control
Authorizes more local tools and innovation
Minimizes one size fits all standards
Rewards communities that produce housing
Avoid or rescind costly preconditions
CEQA revisions that exempt discretionary and environmentally vetted land use and zoning
State finance revisions to make housing pay for local government by providing more subventions per capita (i.e. sales tax is currently 100% situs favoring non-residential)
Build local/State partnerships for housing
