The Homework: November 18, 2025
Welcome to the November 18, 2025 Main edition of The Homework, the official newsletter of California YIMBY — legislative updates, news clips, housing research and analysis, and the latest writings from the California YIMBY team.
News from Sacramento
The second year of our two-year legislative cycle begins in January. For those following two-year bills, the deadline for any committee to hear and report bills introduced in their house in the odd-numbered year will be January 23rd; the final day for each house to pass or reject two-year bills is January 31st.
Congratulations to Senator Monique Limón, the next Senate Pro Tem, who is the first Latina Pro Tem in California history, and California’s 50th Senate President pro Tempore. With her new leadership, we anticipate changes in committee assignments and new committee chairs in the months ahead.
California YIMBY is currently working on finalizing our legislative package for the 2026 legislative year – stay tuned!
Be sure to stay tuned for future editions of The Homework (and follow California YIMBY’s Twitter and Bluesky channels), to stay current on housing policy research, news, and legislative updates.
Housing Research & Analysis
The Affordability Agenda: Why Mobility Matters
Lower-income Americans spend over 30% of their after-tax income on transportation, a burden driven by states prioritizing highways over transit. New research argues the high cost of transport reflects a policy failure, but one that can be reversed and lead to lower household costs – and less climate pollution.
In the Climate and Community Institute’s report, “Letting People Move,” authors Kira McDonald, Narayan Gopinathan, and Emmett Hopkins analyze how state-level transportation funding decisions drive up the cost of living – and make our cities less affordable to working people.
Key Takeaways:
- A $1 billion shift from highway widening to new urban rail transit saves $1.7 billion annually in social and environmental costs by eliminating 1.8 billion vehicle miles.
- States are failing to use their “flex” power, transferring only $5.5 billion of a possible $150 billion in federal highway funds to transit between 2021 and 2023.
- $1 billion in highway funds supports as few as 32,000 homes, while the same amount for transit can support 250,000 homes.
Duplexes? Doable. Triplexes? Trouble.
In pursuit of more affordable housing for young families and first-time homebuyers, cities across the US are legalizing “missing middle” housing. But the reforms passed in many cities often fail to produce new homes. A deep dive into a Memphis, Tennessee, project reveals why: local building, utility, and tax regulations penalize small multifamily projects, making them as complex and expensive as costly high-rises.
In “Beyond Zoning: Hidden Code Barriers to Middle-Scale Housing,” John Zeanah from the Center for Building in North America analyzes how this web of non-zoning regulations stifles the development of “missing middle” housing.
Key Takeaways:
- Moving from two to three homes in a new building triggers a costly shift from the simple International Residential Code (IRC) to the complex International Building Code (IBC), a “make-or-break factor” for a project’s budget.
- Utilities often classify small 3 to 4-home buildings as “commercial,” which requires expensive hardware that increases costs per home.
- In Tennessee, a fourplex owner pays “60% higher property taxes” because the small rental building is assessed at a higher commercial assessment rate (40% vs. 25%).
Houser Headlines
- Scott Wiener Defeated California’s NIMBYs. Can He Fix America’s Housing Crisis? – Mother Jones
- Will the YIMBY ‘Holy Grail’ Deliver an LA Building Boom?
- New York and California are taking on the NIMBYs
- No car? No problem. Building apartments near public transit could help address the housing crisis
- California housing advocates throw San Francisco party. What did they celebrate?
- New York City Voters Pass Contentious Housing Ballot Measures
- A new court ruling ‘blows up’ California housing law.
- To boost homebuilding, San Diego planners OK letting council overrule historic designations
- San Francisco mayor proposes denser housing to tackle affordability crisis
- How Zone Zero, designed to protect California homes from wildfire, became plagued with controversy and delays
YIMBY Social – Top Posts
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