Landmark Bill To Construct Extra Homes Near Public Transit Heads To The Governor

California must construct hundreds of thousands of recent properties in sustainable places to satisfy state housing objectives, slash local weather emissions, and scale back the price of residing. SB 79 creates much less restrictive state zoning codes to permit extra properties close to transit to decrease prices for households whereas bolstering public transit use, slashing visitors congestion, and supporting cash-strapped transit companies.

SAN FRANCISCO – In a bipartisan vote, the California State Senate gave closing approval to Senator Scott Wiener’s (D-San Francisco) landmark Senate Bill (SB) 79, the Abundant & Affordable Homes Near Transit Act. The invoice now heads to Governor Newsom, who should signal or veto the laws by October 12.

SB 79 tackles the basis causes of California’s affordability disaster by permitting extra properties to be constructed close to main public transportation stops and on land owned by transit companies, by:

• Establishing state zoning requirements round prepare stations and main bus stops (bus speedy transit stops) that enable for midrise properties inside a half mile of main transit stops.
• Allowing native transit companies to develop on land they personal. 

SB 79 builds on the landmark CEQA reforms handed earlier this 12 months in AB 130 (Wicks) and SB 131 (Wiener). By establishing state zoning requirements, SB 79 unlocks quite a lot of important land to make use of streamlining payments like AB 130 and Senator Wiener’s SB 423 (2023).

“Building more homes in our most sustainable locations is the key to tackling the affordability crisis and locking in California’s success for many years to come,” mentioned Senator Wiener. “Decades of overly restrictive policies have driven housing costs to astronomical levels, forcing millions of people away from jobs and transit and into long commutes from the suburbs. Many are being forced out of the state entirely. It has been a long road to tackling these decades-old problems, but today’s vote is a dramatic step forward to undo these decades of harm, reduce our most severe costs, and slash traffic congestion and air pollution in our state.”

“Today, California YIMBY achieved certainly one of its founding objectives: legalizing flats and condos close to prepare stations,” mentioned Brian Hanlon, CEO of California YIMBY. “We won many victories over the past eight years, but the dream of passing a robust, transit-oriented development program has long eluded us, until now. My message to YIMBY activists across the country: Keep organizing, keep educating, and keep hustling. Your time will come.”

“SB 79 is the boldest housing action California has ever taken, and it couldn’t come at a more urgent time,” mentioned Marc Vukcevich, Director of State Policy, Streets For All. “By opening the door to millions of new homes, this bill tackles our housing shortage at the scale the crisis demands. For Streets For All, this is about more than housing—it’s about equity, affordability, and creating communities where people can live near jobs and transit without being forced to drive. SB 79 will make California more affordable, more sustainable, and more just.”

“California’s severe housing shortage makes it difficult for working families to stay housed and for our homeless neighbors to find a place to call home,” mentioned Mahdi Manji, Director of Public Policy on the Inner City Law Center. “By ensuring that housing for all Californian’s, regardless of their income, is built near publicly funded transit infrastructure, SB 79 puts California on track to meet our state’s housing needs and build homes for all our neighbors.”

“Californians have been demanding bold action on housing affordability and climate change, and today the legislature delivered,” said Azeen Khanmalek, Executive Director of Abundant Housing LA. “SB 79 will lead to more affordable housing, cleaner air, safer streets,.and accessible transit. Abundant Housing LA thanks Senator Wiener for his leadership and tireless dedication to solving our housing shortage, and our fellow cosponsors for their hard work.” 

“The Bay Area Council is proud to cosponsor SB 79, which will allow more housing near transit and jobs,” mentioned Jim Wunderman, CEO of the Bay Area Council. “Amid rising rents and already-too-high home prices, measures like these are critical to making housing more affordable, increasing ridership on transit, and giving people the option of living closer to where they work. This is critical to making the Bay Area the best place to live and work, and we thank Senator Wiener for being an incredible champion for the region’s housing and transportation needs.”

The invoice has been amended to offer better native flexibility and set up safeguards for affordability, employee’s rights, displacement, demolition, influence on low useful resource areas, historic preservation, wildfire danger, and sea stage rise. The amendments additionally set up minimal density requirements for the invoice.

California has the highest cost of living of any state, primarily attributable to our excessive housing scarcity. At the identical time, overly restrictive zoning legal guidelines forestall hundreds of thousands of Californians from residing close to public transit, making prepare and bus techniques impractical for a lot of. Building an abundance of properties in any respect earnings ranges, in shut proximity to main transit stops, will handle our housing scarcity to decrease prices whereas making public transportation possible for hundreds of thousands of households to make use of. Building these properties begins with legalizing to construct multifamily housing close to main transit stops, often known as transit-oriented growth.

Building on land owned by transit companies will even present urgently wanted monetary assist for public transit. Many profitable transit companies in cities like Tokyo, Singapore, and Hong Kong increase income to assist public transit by creating land that they personal. In Hong Kong, the strategy is so profitable that the transit company often turns a profit—in stark distinction to the various transit companies dealing with main price range shortfalls throughout California attributable to slowly recovering ridership and the state’s low stage of assist for public transit in contrast with different jurisdictions.

Several jurisdictions exterior of California have made progress in making transit-oriented 

growth simpler: 

• Colorado requires cities to permit a mean of 40 dwelling models per acre inside a quarter-mile of transit.
• Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority will need to have no less than one multifamily district permitting no less than 15 dwelling models per acre.
• Utah requires a mean  density of fifty dwelling models per acre in transit reinvestment zones.

SB 79 units requirements for allowable housing growth inside a half mile of prepare stops and main bus stops, often known as bus speedy transit (BRT) stops. SB 79 doesn’t apply round low frequency bus stops. The requirements are tiered to permit better peak and density within the quick neighborhood of essentially the most closely trafficked transit stops, and decrease ranges round much less trafficked sorts of transit stops and within the surrounding areas

For Tier 1 stops — which embody heavy rail traces like BART, Caltrain, and LA Metro’s B & D Lines — the state zoning requirements will probably be:

• Up to 9 tales adjoining to the cease
• 7 tales inside ¼ mile
• 6 tales between ¼ and ½ mile

For Tier 2 stops — which embody gentle rail like Sac RT and SF Muni, excessive frequency commuter rail like some Metrolink stations, and main bus transit that qualifies as bus-rapid transit below the state’s definition, or is served by a 24-hour bus-only lane) — the state zoning requirements will probably be: 

• 8 tales adjoining to the cease
• 6 tales inside ¼ mile
• 5 tales between ¼ and ½ mile

Transit oriented housing developments below SB 79 are eligible for the streamlined ministerial approvals course of below Senate Bill 423 (Wiener, 2023) in the event that they meet that regulation’s environmental, labor, and affordability requirements. Under SB 79, native governments would have flexibility to tailor their TOD areas and requirements in an alternate plan topic to oversight from the Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD).

SB 79 is sponsored by Streets for All, California YIMBY, Greenbelt Alliance, SPUR, Abundant Housing LA, Inner City Law Center, and the Bay Area Council. 

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