California lawmakers pass SB 79, housing bill that brings dense housing

Posted by mji 9/13/2025

California lawmakers pass SB 79, housing bill that brings dense housing(www.latimes.com)

238 points | 127 comments

davidw 9/13/2025|

It has been really amazing to see this finally come to fruition. This has been years in the making, and is real progress in starting to fix California's massive housing shortage. I know a number of the people involved in this work and they have put so much effort into it. They are going to be in a partying mood at the YIMBYTown conference taking place shortly: https://yimby.town/ !

nilsbunger 9/13/2025||

A Redditor created a great interactive map showing where SB 79 applies in California here: https://www.reddit.com/r/yimby/comments/1ne2q87/sb_79_intera...

avidiax 9/13/2025||

This really shows how limited the effect of this bill is, but it's still much better than nothing.

lacker 9/13/2025||

A big question is whether these areas actually turn into denser housing, or whether something else in the process manages to bog it down. Plenty of housing bills have seemed like a big deal when you looked at the area they impacted, but in practice they led to little new housing.

nilsbunger 9/13/2025|||

A lot of the California bills had various poison pills in them that reduced their effectiveness.

For example, SB684 allowed building and subdividing up to 10 units on a multifamily lot. BUT, the lot wasn’t eligible if you had to knock down a building that had tenants in the past N years to avoid displacement of people.

You can probably guess how many multifamily lots are out there where you don’t have to tear down an existing building with tenants.

There are other issues too. Interest rates and tariffs make a lot of projects not viable financially.

nerdponx 9/14/2025||||

The problem we are seeing in suburban MA right now is that they're building the wrong kind of housing to address the greatest shortage, and doing it in a way that does not promote the long-term community well-being. Developers are jamming in large numbers of small "luxury" units with insufficient parking in a car-dependent area in whatever lot they can get their hands on, instead of density increasing organically throughout the immediate area around downtown, adding ADUs and replacing large single family homes with 2/3/4-unit condos.

Why is this happening? Because zoning boards don't allow reasonable multifamily development in densifying areas, so developers do the only thing they can do, which is build in already-built-up areas with looser zoning, and/or ram projects through using a state low income housing provision called 40B.

The effect is that while the apartment market for young professionals is going to continue to soften, the market for comfortable family dwellings remains brutal and increasingly unaffordable. There are 80+ unit apartment buildings literally surrounded by multi-lane stroads, while less than a mile away there are single family homes on quiet tree lined streets where you could easily have the same number of units in multifamily condo buildings and garden apartments, and still retain the comforts of suburbia.

So whatever poison pills are in here, it cannot be worse than the status quo in MA, in which the development is too much of the wrong thing and everyone loses in the end except the developers and real estate agents.

jerlam 9/13/2025|||

Yes, sadly just because the zoning has changed does not mean that any of the buildings that already exist will be torn down and rebuilt for decades, if not longer. And localities have all kinds of restrictions and fees that still prevent building to take place.

flomo 9/13/2025||

Ug. I'm a 'yimby' and a Weiner voter. But his take on San Francisco transit is just like really bad. Pokey streetcars and buses, doomed to fail. You build out there in those blue areas, and they are mostly all driving.

My take is you build it, and THEN they come. Put in some GOOD transit. Make sure the utilities are in place. Developers will then flock to the place. This whole thing is using inside-out logic. Have a real plan first.

lacker 9/13/2025|||

We DID build good transit. It takes 15 minutes to get from the MacArthur BART to downtown San Francisco! But the walkable area around that station is full of single-family housing. It's a huge waste building all of this incredible public transit and then not allowing apartment buildings near it.

The same is true for so many of the East Bay BART stops. Amazing transit but apartment buildings are banned so it's much more expensive to live there than it should be.

reducesuffering 9/13/2025||||

How are developers going to flock to the place if it’s zoned for Single Family Homes? The whole point of the bill is to upzone

flomo 9/13/2025||

Because developers are going to include the parking so everyone out there can drive where they are going. Which is my point. The "transit" aspect of this bill is total bullshit. If you like cars, and want more traffic, this is for you.

wongarsu 9/13/2025||

Those areas are fairly small, and their number is limited. That might drive more space efficient solutions like underground parking or selling spots in a parking garage that serves multiple buildings

flomo 9/13/2025||

[flagged]

dlite90 9/15/2025||||

Nah, if you build high-density housing near transit stops the transit will definitely get more ridership (and ergo more funding). You're painting with broad strokes saying "they'll drive anyway!" but really a lot of car trips will get replaced with transit or walking, and that trend will only increase as more dense housing gets built.

inferiorhuman 9/13/2025||||

  But his take on San Francisco transit is just like really bad. Pokey
  streetcars and buses, doomed to fail. You build out there in those blue
  areas, and they are mostly all driving.

One of the best parts about where I lived in San Francisco was that I was around the corner from a streetcar stop. Pre-pandemic the streetcar was absolutely packed during commute hours because people absolutely do take advantage of "pokey streetcars and buses".

  My take is you build it, and THEN they come. Put in some GOOD transit.

What is GOOD transit? The Bay Area's spent a fortune building out BART (yuck) and every extension has only succeeded in siphoning money away from other transit.

flomo 9/13/2025||

Yep, me (and my politician Weiner) have some great public transit, so that's certainly true of some places.

Those folks that he is up-zoning out in the avenues, they are driving. Different culture out there. Downvote reality to the left.

GOOD transit it obvious, and it certainly is not a gigantic tunnel deep under downtown San Jose which is 400% over budget. Do not claim there is a lack of money for any of this. The political machine is just totally malfunctional.

inferiorhuman 9/13/2025||

  Those folks that he is up-zoning out in the avenues, they are
  driving. Different culture out there. Downvote reality to the left.

To be clear I was out in the avenues.

flomo 9/13/2025||

Just curious exactly what neighborhood and how long did you live there? (duboce triangle, a long time)

I know a bunch of people who live/d out there, they take muni downtown but mostly have a car. Perhaps you could regal in tales of your car-free lifestyle in the Sunset, but i'm not seeing it. Weiner wants condos out there and he does not give a shit about your bus ride.

inferiorhuman 9/13/2025|||

  he does not give a shit about your bus ride.

As I pointed out earlier streetcar, not a bus ride.

  but i'm not seeing it

Look harder.

Pre-pandemic the L and N were the two busiest rail routes (and the busiest lines systemwide) even considering they share most of the underground portion with four other lines. Somewhere around 75,000 daily trips.

flomo 9/14/2025||

Yeah, I know, I take the N, it goes downtown, everywhere else you need a bus (or practically, a car). Sorry if that was confusing.

smugma 9/14/2025|||

e-bikes seem to have been invented for SF. They solve the hill problem and long lines at school drop offs. I see their growth continuing to reduce car needs in SF.

Sadly, I say this as someone who lives in Duboce Triangle and owns two cars.

mschuster91 9/13/2025|||

> My take is you build it, and THEN they come. Put in some GOOD transit. Make sure the utilities are in place.

The problem is, that costs money that, for a few years at the very least, will not be recouped. Not many politicians have the ability to push such efforts through regardless of profitability, especially not when the topic in question will be abused by the opposition in their usual culture war bullshit.

theluketaylor 9/13/2025|||

It costs a lot less to build transit infrastructure before or at the same time as everything else compared with adding it later, even if the line is underused as density is added.

The best alternative is a well-planned phased line with carefully protected right-of-way and a dedicated source of long term funding. Bonus points for it being a combination of value capture taxes and the transit agency being a property developer in their own right around stations. The early phase can be inside the boundary of current development so there are people to ride right away. Developers can build and market using the upcoming line, and prospective residents can be confident it will happen with funding secured.

flomo 9/13/2025|||

I was posting about specifics.

xrd 9/13/2025||

This happened in Oregon a few years ago: any cities with 25k or more people had to permit greater density. I'm optimistic about housing on the West Coast for the first time in a long, long time. This will transform things in a big way.

davidw 9/13/2025||

Oregon - thanks to governor Tina Kotek - pushed those reforms further this year:

https://oregoncapitalchronicle.com/2025/07/29/gov-kotek-sign...

I got to play a small part in that, going to Salem to say my piece in favor:

https://oregoncapitalchronicle.com/2025/03/04/oregon-gov-kot...

She liked my hoodie!

https://bsky.app/profile/tinakotek.bsky.social/post/3lkea36k...

That said, what her bills have accomplished is a bit different than CA: rather than larger buildings close to transit, we legalized 4-plexes and a variety of other housing types that use land more efficiently, throughout cities.

xrd 9/13/2025||

That article you posted is terrific. I love the story of the "grandmother" in Cully Grove.

Thank you for your work on this. You'll leave a great legacy in Oregon!

dmoy 9/13/2025||

It happened in WA two years ago as well, but Seattle dragged its feet as long as humanly possible in implementing a compliant zoning policy.

https://www.theurbanist.org/2025/05/27/seattle-just-rezoned-...

davidw 9/13/2025||

Oddly enough, it's Spokane that is lapping everyone on a lot of these reforms. They're just doing one thing after another without making a big deal out of it.

danans 9/13/2025||

Credit to State Senator Senator Scott Wiener (SF) who has been the primary champion of this and other related legislation.

Hilift 9/13/2025||

"Bring dense housing" misses the plot. It prevents 50% of all development projects (in recent years) from being thwarted for no reason under the veil of environment laws. Some municipalities also had requirements to "get your neighbors approval", which resulted in bizarre interactions where residents would actually ask developers for things that cost millions of dollars. "Can you build a ground floor office for my dentist husband"? (Actual question).

For those wondering, 80% of Palisades/Eaton fire residents will not rebuild and will sell. The process will take over three years and is frustrating even with the new legislation. This could result in some interesting multi-tenant developments in those areas.

username135 9/13/2025|

Not many transit stops in either of those areas.

Hilift 9/13/2025||

There probably will be, but they don't need transit to transform development because no one wants three years of competing with their neighbor for developer and contractor resources. 80% will rent or buy elsewhere. Some may return and purchase into a new Palisades development.

Probably worth noting that Rick Caruso, an LA developer and mayoral candidate, has one of the few developments ("Palisades Village") that was not burned due to it was designed with fire resistant exteriors, roofs and cladding.

modeless 9/13/2025||

Seems like cities will fight transit much harder than before. Add it to the pile of unintended consequences, growing as fast as new legislation is passed, and never shrinking.

To be clear, I'm strongly in favor of more development. But when we solve the problems of bad legislation by adding more legislation instead of removing legislation, we are just kicking the can down the road.

m463 9/13/2025||

I kind of wonder if this can be gamed, by closing train stations or moving bus stops, or bus lines.

ehnto 9/13/2025||

edit: I should preface, I am very pro dense housing.

Probably, but there is a lot of money on the table for developers and so I think capitalism will be aligned with denser housing for a bit of time. Developers with deep pockets aren't interested in maintaining property values for single family homes, they will want to buy up land cheap and build station/commercial complexes for dense housing to build up around.

That's my view anyway. The upside of dense living is the affordability for individuals, one of the downsides is that it can favour big corporate developers. Shared ownership structures are really important to help mitigate that for residential developments.

In a society that works together this can be symbiotic, and really efficient way to build. For a country that lets the rich eat the poor, there is potential for exploitive scenarios to arise without the right regulation in place.

gs17 9/13/2025||

There's another way it will be gamed without having to close or move anything:

> (e) “High-frequency commuter rail” means a commuter rail service operating a total of at least 48 trains per day across both directions, > (r) “Very high frequency commuter rail” means a commuter rail service with a total of at least 72 trains per day across both directions

I bet some schedules will be changed to fall below these requirements.

y-curious 9/13/2025||

I don't see anyone talking about it in the comments: Marin, the wealthy exurb north of SF, has always had a laughably aggressive hate towards public transit. I wonder if this was something they saw coming, as they are completely unaffected by this bill.

aurareturn 9/13/2025|

[flagged]

username135 9/13/2025||

Unless those poor people are needed to clean and maintain their homes.

aurareturn 9/13/2025||

Yes but still no public transportation.

standardUser 9/13/2025||

https://archive.is/a5Mwi

yahway 9/13/2025|

The problem with ant zoning laws is that they pick winners and losers. They need abolished state-wide to ever have a true affect. Otherwise, these limited pockets get bought up by investors and again, are limited to tiny areas. Abolish it state wide and people will over build and then true affordability will return.

davidw 9/13/2025||

This bill barely passed (they got a majority +1, which they needed to pass) so a further reaching bill might have been difficult to sell.

The LA area in particular, has some really bad elected officials in terms of housing.

Ylpertnodi 9/13/2025||

> The LA area in particular, has some really bad elected officials in terms of housing.

LA in particular? Naaah, mate. Those elected officials are fucking everywhere.

Yours, an Eu resident.

TulliusCicero 9/15/2025||

In this case specifically, northern California was mostly in favor, and the wider LA area was mostly against. I almost said southern California, but actually San Diego was in favor too.

wongarsu 9/13/2025|||

The optimistic view is that a lot of small spots of dense housing exposes more people to it, which in time could lead to more people being in favor of zoning additional land for dense housing

energy123 9/13/2025|||

Correct, given that housing in one location is significantly fungible with housing in another location, barring some economic frictions. The total stock (both state-wide and nation-wide) is the metric that needs to be increased.

lotsofpulp 9/13/2025||

> Correct, given that housing in one location is significantly fungible with housing in another location, barring some economic frictions

What do you mean by economic friction, because in real estate, “location, location, location” is the most important phrase.

The economic opportunities available to someone in living within 1 hour of SF and San Jose are vastly different to someone living 4 hours away, hence the house in one location is not fungible with the house in another.

Even on the more local level, the school district a house is located in will make a big difference.

davidw 9/13/2025||

I think they're talking about a matter of blocks, not hours of transportation.

peterbecich 9/13/2025||

Is "ant" antiquated? Zoning is a good thing. If you abolished all zoning, construction would be completely disorganized as it was in the California Gold Rush.

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