2026 Legislation

Policy Buckets

During the 2026 legislative session, California YIMBY will be advocating for policies that support the following themes:

• Lowering barriers to affordable homeownership: Our previous efforts to loosen prohibitions and tight restrictions on “starter homes” are bearing fruit, and in 2026, we’ll push hard to expand these victories. With the recent success of reforms to CEQA and zoning regulations, we’re working on complementary policies that will lower construction and finance costs – and give more Californians a shot at owning their own home. We also have legislation that refines the scope of existing incentives for starter homes and other home ownership opportunities, along with our ever-evolving push for ADUs as a pathway to affordability.
• Rein in excessive rules and fees that increase housing costs: In communities across California, local governments slow or even halt housing production by charging enormous fees and taxes that often have the effect of killing new housing; the homes that can get built end up passing these fees on to owners and renters. Every new home should pay reasonable fees, but the system of charging fees and taxes on new housing in California is out of control. In 2026, we’ll focus on legislation that can reduce these fees and make them more transparent. We’ll also push reforms that inadvertently penalize entire typologies of affordable housing, like apartments, townhomes, and condos.
• Strengthen and refine existing pro-housing law: While we always aim to get our pro-housing legislation right the first time, these laws inevitably need updates – in some cases, effective laws just need refining, or can be applied in broader conditions; in others, we make mistakes in drafting, or the bills themselves have legal errors that aren’t caught until an implementing agency gets hung up by the language. During every legislative session, we have a number of “clean-up bills” that update existing laws, filling cracks and clarifying goals and definitions. This year we’ll be making these changes to ground-breaking laws that expand homeownership opportunities, expand housing choices near transit, and – as always – make it faster, easier, and cheaper to build ADUs.