The Homework: February 26, 2026
Welcome to the February 26, 2026 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
California YIMBY’s 2026 legislative agenda is off to a solid start. In January, our sponsored bill to lower the cost of new starter homes for homeownership, AB 1406 (Ward), passed the Assembly floor with bipartisan support. The bill would create a pathway for more Californians to become homeowners by raising current limits on homebuyer deposits in new housing developments. The bill now heads to the Senate and is not expected to be heard until later this year.
Our 2026 legislative package is nearly complete. Below is the list of bills we are sponsoring so far:
Lowering barriers to affordable homeownership
- AB 1406 (Ward) will give more Californians a pathway to affordable homeownership by raising current limits on homebuyer deposits in new housing developments. The bill helps builders lower their construction and financing costs by reducing risk to lenders.
- SB 1116 (Caballero) will streamline the construction of smaller, lower-cost “starter” homes for home ownership by making several improvements to existing state housing law.
Rein in excessive rules and fees that increase housing costs
- AB 1294 (Haney) will create a single, statewide application process for new home construction in California, making it faster, cheaper, and easier for home builders to complete.
- AB 1070 (Ward) will direct state agencies to study how using the residential building code for small, multi-family home projects could accelerate the construction of “missing middle” housing.
- SB 1014 (Grayson) will require cities to disclose all infrastructure requirements (such as sidewalks and sewers) within 30 days of a housing application and prohibit adding new requirements more than 30 days after a permit application. The bill improves certainty, reducing risk and costs.
Revitalizing struggling downtown districts
- AB 2074 (Haney) will accelerate the recovery of dense, urban neighborhoods in California’s largest cities by streamlining the construction of high-rise, residential developments near regional transit hubs.
Strengthen and refine existing pro-housing law
- SB 908 (Wiener) will add clarifying language and technical guidance to SB 79 (2025), California’s landmark transit-oriented housing law.
- SB 1117 (Cervantes) will make it less costly to build ADUs by removing an arbitrary financial penalty that many jurisdictions impose on ADUs over 750 square feet.
- AB 956 (Quirk-Silva) will increase the housing potential of single-family lots by empowering homeowners to build up to two detached ADUs (accessory dwelling units) on their properties.
- SB 1216 (Cabaldon) will create a new housing leadership designation to recognize and reward cities and counties that demonstrate measurable success in building new homes
We expect to add more bills to our 2026 legislative package, so stay tuned. Be sure to follow California YIMBY’s Twitter and Bluesky to get more up-to-date news on housing policy, legislation, and research. If you find this newsletter valuable, forward it to a friend!
Housing Research & Analysis
Shining a Light on the Black Box of Building Codes
Modern building codes are designed to ensure the safety and comfort of the residents of new buildings. By regulating issues like building materials, fire safety, stairway design, and other common building elements, building codes help make sure that our homes and businesses can be productively occupied for many years without the threat of catastrophic failure, loss, or human injury.
But new research from UCLA has found that, in several specific cases, sections of the building code – which is written and updated by the International Code Council (ICC) – are either outdated, or are not grounded in sound building science. The result: Buildings that are both more costly to build, and give builders less flexibility in the use of modern technologies and techniques.
In Cracking the Code: Reclaiming Building Standards for Public Interest, Jesse Zwick, a graduate student at the UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies, examines how portions of the ICC code development process have been distorted to produce regulations that raise housing costs and stifle innovation in the sector.
Key Takeaways:
- No rigorous analysis: U.S. building codes lack rigorous cost-benefit analysis (CBA), often implementing mandates without quantifying the benefit to human life. Zwick concludes that the lack of rigorous CBA explains why mid-rise construction costs average 55% more per square foot than single-family homes.
- Industry and government capture: The ICC’s voting rules favor small towns, and its committees overrepresent industry incumbents. Code officials, accountable for safety lapses but not for cost increases, tend to reinforce this bias.
Safety impact of higher costs: Stricter codes make new construction more expensive, slowing housing production and keeping more people in older, less safe buildings. Even minimally compliant new housing would be safer than the aging housing it could replace.
How Cities Use Government Housing Subsidies for … Parks and Roads?
Across the state of California, cities, school districts, and utility agencies levy “impact fees” on new housing construction to pay for roads, parks, sewers, and other public services. These fees are often applied equally to both market-rate and government-subsidized affordable housing projects.
But subsidized affordable housing projects depend on limited state and federal funding, so every dollar spent on fees is one less dollar available to build housing.
In the “Assessing the Cost of Impact Fees on Affordable Housing: An Analysis of Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Projects in California,” Carolina Reid, Leslye Corsiglia, and Ben Metcalf of the Terner Center for Housing Innovation analyzed the financial burden of local fees on subsidized housing.
Key Takeaways:
- Highest fees on family units: Local fees add an average of $19,806 to the cost of each new affordable housing unit, with family-sized units hit hardest at $24,054 per unit, and some projects facing charges exceeding $30,000 per unit.
- Minimal revenue for cities: The cumulative annual cost of $300 million is enough to fund an additional 1,250 affordable homes each year — yet among cities with LIHTC developments, fees account for only 1.1 percent of average total city revenues.
Large savings from waivers: Fee waivers deliver dramatic savings when they happen — one Palo Alto development received $76,000 per unit in relief — yet only 61 out of 691 projects reported any fee waivers, deferrals, or reductions.
Houser Headlines
- A ground-floor Costco is proving what’s broken in housing
- High-End Construction Really Does Help Everyone
- California needs local housing fee reform
- California lags way behind in condo construction — this bill aims to change that
- By doubling down on ‘mansion tax,’ Los Angeles earns its fate
- San Diego shows what happens when a city actually lets builders build
- These fees make affordable housing more expensive. Developers want to slash them
- L.A. mayoral candidate Nithya Raman’s record may surprise you
- Santa Monica sponsored law could turn the tide on coastal development
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