The Homework: June 4, 2025
Welcome to the June 4, 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
A Historic Win for Transit-Oriented Housing on the Senate Floor
Last night, SB 79 (Wiener) passed in the State Senate with 21 votes – enough to advance the bill to the Assembly. SB 79 will make it faster and easier to build multi-family housing near transit stops, like train and rapid bus lines, by making it legal for more homes to be built in these areas, and streamlining existing permit review processes.
This was a historic vote that caps eight years of effort by California YIMBY and our allies to legalize more homes near transit stops. The bill still has to clear a few more hurdles, but the Senate’s approval sends a strong signal of where things are headed.
SB 79 now heads to the Assembly, where it will once again go through the committee process prior to a floor vote. Any amendments made on the Assembly side will then have to return to the Senate for a concurrence vote, and then on to the Governor’s desk.
In addition to SB 79, AB 413 (Fong) – which would require the California Department of Housing & Community Development (HCD) to translate key state housing guidelines and handbooks into the non-English languages commonly spoken in California – passed the Assembly floor and is heading to the Senate.
Appropriations Update
After the Appropriations Committee hearings the week of May 19th, the majority of our bills passed, with the exception of AB 595 (Carrillo). This bill would have created more affordable homeownership opportunities by providing tax credits for the construction of for-sale homes affordable to Californians who earn moderate incomes. Unfortunately, the bill’s cost left it held in suspense.
California YIMBY is committed to making it more affordable to buy a home in our state, and while we’re disappointed in the stalling of AB 595, many of our other 2025 bills will also help achieve this goal.
The rest of our sponsored bills have cleared their house of origin and are now on their way to the other chamber:
- AB 609 (Wicks): Creates a CEQA exemption for environmentally-friendly housing located in existing urban areas (“infill housing”).
- AB 1061 (Quirk-Silva): Makes it easier to increase the number of homes—including duplexes—in single-family neighborhoods by allowing the California HOME Act (SB 9, 2021) to be used in historic districts.
- AB 1154 (Juan Carrillo): Removes owner-occupancy requirements for “junior” ADUs (ADUs built within an existing home) that do not share sanitation facilities with the existing structure. It will also exempt small ADUs under 500 square feet from parking requirements, similar to existing exemption for JADUs.
- AB 253 (Ward): Speeds up the approval process for new homes by allowing home builders to hire a licensed and certified third-party reviewer for review of housing permit applications if the local government cannot or does not complete their permit review within 30 days.
- SB 9 (Arreguín): Ensures that local laws governing the construction of accessory dwelling units (ADUs) align with state law, and provides a pathway to eliminate unlawful local barriers to ADUs.
- AB 1308 (Hoover): Speeds up the post-entitlement process by requiring building departments to provide estimated timeframes for permit inspections and allowing applicants to contract with private professionals for inspections.
These bills will be assigned committee hearing dates soon, as committee hearings reconvene on June 9th!
To stay current on what housing bills California YIMBY is sponsoring and supporting, you can now use our Abstract link to track with us.
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
Want to Build a Home in Los Angeles? Get in Line. It’s Two to Three Years Long.
Los Angeles suffers from severe housing unaffordability, with one-third of renters spending over half their income on housing – and over 47,000 residents experiencing homelessness. New research suggests that lengthy approval processes may be a key factor limiting housing production in LA.
In “Development Approval Times and New Housing Supply: Evidence from Los Angeles,” Stuart Gabriel (UCLA) and Edward Kung (California State University, Northridge) analyze development timelines for all multifamily housing projects permitted in Los Angeles between 2010 and 2022, providing the first comprehensive analysis of how regulatory delays impact housing production.
Key Takeaways:
- The average housing development takes 3.9 years to complete, with 37% of this time (652 days) spent in the approval process (p. 10)
- Reducing approval times by 25% would increase housing production by 13.5% simply by accelerating existing projects, with potential gains up to 24.6% when accounting for incentive effects (p. 20)
- Mixed-income projects face the longest delays, with the average project spending 838 days in the approval process, undermining one of the most scalable pathways to build affordable housing without deep subsidies.
Location, Location, Low-Carbon: The Surprising Climate Math of Where We Live
While urban planners have long considered the impacts of density, new research reveals additional housing and neighborhood design factors that significantly impact our carbon footprint in residential developments.
In “Beyond Density: Examining overlooked drivers of housing and neighborhood greenhouse gas emissions,” Aldrick Arceo (University of Toronto), Marianne Touchie (University of Toronto), and William O’Brien (Carleton University) analyzed four housing types and 529 neighborhood case studies from Toronto to identify key climate pollution drivers across diverse urban and suburban contexts.
Key Takeaways:
- Multi-unit buildings produce 45-62% less climate pollution per person than detached homes, with high-rise apartments showing pollution 32% lower than attached houses.
- Neighborhoods with good walkability and transit access reduce climate pollution regardless of density, with “Walker’s Paradise” areas showing nearly half the pollution of car-dependent zones.
- Larger households, neighborhoods with more rental properties, and lower household income levels correlate with lower per-capita climate pollution.
Houser Headlines
- Denser Housing May Be On the Horizon Near LA’s Transit Centers — LAist
- How Gentrification Is Killing the Bus: California’s Rising Rents Are Pushing Out Commuters — CalMatters
- After Half a Century, California Legislators On the Verge of Overhauling a Landmark Environmental Law — LA Times
- California Lawmakers Push for CEQA Reforms to Address Housing Crisis — KTLA News
- Gavin Newsom Lays Down the Law On Housing Construction — Politico
- Why Did the California Senate Shunt a Cost-Cutting Housing Bill? — CalMatters
- Gloria’s ADU Proposal Would Block Housing in San Diego’s Whitest, Wealthiest Neighborhoods — KPBS
- Opinion: Legislators Should Look to Sacramento As a Test Case On Housing Reform — Sacramento Bee
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