Historic Housing Legislation Passes in California
SB 79 Culminates Eight-Year Fight to Legalize Homes Near Transit
“Nothing is impossible”
SACRAMENTO – In a historic victory for California YIMBY and the YIMBY movement, the California state legislature today voted to pass SB 79, a bill that will make it legal to build more homes near the highest capacity transit stops across California.
The bill now heads to Governor Newsom’s desk for signature into law.
“Today, California YIMBY achieved one of its founding goals: legalizing apartments and condos near train stations,” said 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.”
To learn more about SB 79, click here.
“With the passage of SB 79 – thanks to our allies and legislative partners – we’re delivering on what we set out to do: more affordable homes, cleaner air, vibrant neighborhoods, and better transit,” Hanlon said. “This is a historic win—and a testament to the growing power of the YIMBY movement.”
The journey to the passage of SB 79 began at a bar in San Francisco in 2017, when Hanlon pitched the idea to California YIMBY co-founders Zack Rosen and Nat Friedman. Later that year, Hanlon worked with Sen. Wiener to draft and introduce SB 827.
While the bill did not advance through its first committee, its scope and breadth – it would have legalized millions of homes near transit – was seen as an opening salvo in national efforts to unlock housing growth across the U.S. and inspired the YIMBY movement to advocate for state, not just local, solutions.
SB 827 drew national attention from nascent YIMBY organizers and pro-housing activists, whose commitment to inclusive, affordable, and well-planned housing growth had yet to gain traction. The following year, as the national YIMBY movement began its rapid growth, California YIMBY and Sen. Wiener pushed ahead with SB 50, the “More Homes” Act – a revised version of SB 827 that also sought to legalize homes in transit-rich neighborhoods. That bill failed on the Senate floor in the final minutes of the 2019 legislative session (in January of 2020).
But the defeat of SB 50 was concurrent with the advance of other pro-housing bills sponsored by California YIMBY, including laws that have unleashed a wave of housing growth in “accessory dwelling units,” or ADUs, as well as reforms that targeted abuse of state housing law by local anti-housing activists and elected officials.
“The legislature was clearly developing an appetite to make it legal to build more homes, and we were happy to feed them more ideas,” Hanlon said.
To learn more about SB 79, click here.
In ensuing legislative sessions, California YIMBY focused on more technical, but important, reforms to existing laws like the Housing Accountability Act, the Permit Streamlining Act, and the Mitigation Fee Act, and passed laws to legalize ‘missing-middle’ housing like duplexes and small apartment buildings. In 2022, the group notched a major victory with the passage of AB 2097, which ended costly and environmentally-destructive parking mandates throughout the state.
The steady drumbeat of pro-housing legislation in Sacramento also served to reduce the need to include a menu of reforms in a single piece of legislation; in essence, many of the provisions of SB 827 and SB 50 were getting passed as stand-alone legislation. When SB 79 was introduced, it was done as a “clean” transit-oriented housing bill that would legalize homes near transit stations.
During the legislative session, the bill underwent a dozen amendments to refine its scope and address concerns from legislators, yet the core of the bill remains intact, and is aligned with the original intent of SB 827. SB 79 will make it faster and easier to build multi-family housing near high capacity transit stops, like train and rapid bus lines, by making it legal for more homes to be built in these areas.
Under the bill’s provisions, the type of new homes that will be allowed is determined by the distance of the housing from a transit stop; the transit type and frequency; and the overall level of transit infrastructure in the region.
To learn more about SB 79, click here.
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About California YIMBY: California YIMBY is a community of neighbors who welcome more neighbors. We believe that an equitable California begins with abundant, secure, affordable housing. We focus on housing and land use policy at the state and local level to ensure grassroots organizers and city leaders have the tools they need to accelerate home building. https://cayimby.org/