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According to the nonpartisan California Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO), homes in California are about twice as expensive as the typical U.S. home. The LAO found that “[p]ayments for a mid-tier home were over $5,500 a month in September 2025—a 74 percent increase since January 2020.”
2025 was a banner year for housing legislation. In a rare maneuver, Gov. Gavin Newsom successfully secured the Legislature’s enactment of major reforms to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) through the budget process. As discussed more below, the CEQA reform package speeds up CEQA review, particularly in infill areas, and “creates a CEQA exemption for rezonings required by changes to a Housing Element.” Governor Newsom referred to these reforms as “a game changer, which will be felt for generations to come.” Additionally, Governor Newsom signed a major transit-oriented development upzoning bill (SB-79).
While it remains to be seen how many new housing units these pieces of legislation will catalyze, commentators agree that the 2025 legislative session included major pieces of housing legislation. UC Berkeley’s Terner Center argues that “these laws will likely go a long way toward creating the conditions for more housing production in California in the future.”
Note: The legislative summaries below rely heavily on examination from the LAO.
Table of Contents
Signed Bills
California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA)
AB-130 (Committee on Budget): This law provides that CEQA does not apply to housing development projects (defined as projects where at least two-thirds of the square footage is residential) that meet all the following conditions:
Project Site Requirements
- The project site is no more than 20 acres, except for a builder’s remedy site, which cannot exceed five acres.
- The project site is located within the boundaries of an incorporated municipality or within a Census Bureau-defined urban area.
- The project site has been previously developed with an urban use, and:
- At least 75 percent of the perimeter of the site adjoins parcels that are developed with urban uses.
- At least 75 percent of the area within a one-quarter-mile radius of the site is developed with urban uses.
- For sites with four sides: At least three out of four sides are developed with urban uses and at least two-thirds of the perimeter of the site adjoins parcels that are developed with urban uses.
- The project is consistent with the applicable general plan, zoning ordinance, specific plan and local coastal program.
- The project will be at least one-half of the applicable Mullin density, which means:
- At least five units per acre for an unincorporated area in a nonmetropolitan county
- At least 10 units per acre in a suburban jurisdiction
- At least 15 units per acre in a metropolitan jurisdiction
Restrictions:
- The project is not located on an environmentally sensitive or hazardous site.
- The project does not require the demolition of a historic structure that was placed on a national, state or local historic register.
- No portion of the project is designated for use as a hotel, motel, bed and breakfast inn or other transient lodging.
California Native American Tribes Consultation Requirements:
- Within 14 days of determining that an application for a project is complete, the local government must provide specified information to all California Native American tribes traditionally and culturally affiliated with the project site and invite them to consult on the project.
- The local government must include, as binding conditions of the project approval, any enforceable agreements reached during the project consultation and all the following measures, unless there is mutual agreement between the California Native American tribe and the project proponent not to include the measure as a binding condition.
Remediation Measures:
- The development proponent must assess the site for environmental hazards and mitigate any hazards found, as specified, before the issuance of the certificate of occupancy.
- Any housing on a site located within 500 feet of a freeway must include specified air filtration and design mitigations.
Labor Standards:
- Requires that construction workers be paid the prevailing wage for projects that are 100 percent affordable housing.
- Requires the use of a skilled and trained construction workforce for buildings that are over 85 feet in height.
- Requires that construction workers be paid the prevailing wage for projects of 50 units or greater in the city and county of San Francisco if not subject to the skilled workforce requirement above for any construction craft where at least 50 percent of the units in market-rate multifamily housing projects that received their certificate of occupancy between 2022 and 2024 were built by workers paid not less than the general prevailing rate of per diem wage.
- Makes the project proponent liable if the general contractor or subcontractor fails to meet the applicable wage standards and enables a joint labor-management cooperation committee to enforce this requirement.
- Enables a joint labor-management cooperation committee to enforce state law that ensures that contractors are properly licensed, are paying their payroll taxes and have proper workers’ compensation insurance.
California Coastal Commission:
- Subjects the California Coastal Commission’s review of housing project permit applications to the shorter CEQA timelines that apply to other lead agencies under the Permit Streamlining Act.
SB-131 (Committee on Budget): This law establishes a process to review housing development projects that meet all but one eligibility criterion for specified CEQA exemptions, referred to as “near-miss” projects, with specified exclusions. The review process includes the following:
- Scope of Environmental Review
- Requires the initial study or environmental impact report (EIR) to examine only those effects that the lead agency determines, based on substantial evidence in the record, are caused solely by the single condition that makes the proposed project ineligible for the exemption.
- Limits this alternative environmental review process by:
- Removing the alternatives analysis.
- Removing the consideration of cumulative impacts or growth-inducing impacts of the project that would normally be considered in an EIR.
- New CEQA Exemptions
- Provided that the project complies with specified requirements, the law also exempts the Wildfire Risk Reduction Projects from CEQA. Specified wildfire risk reduction projects include prescribed burns, defensible space clearance and fuel breaks.
SB-486 (Cabaldon): This law (1) requires Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) to consider postsecondary enrollment when they prepare their Sustainable Communities Strategy (SCS); (2) requires the California State University (CSU), and requests the University of California (UC) to provide specified enrollment information to Councils of Government (COGs) to inform regional housing planning; (3) narrows the scope of the environmental analysis that the CSU and UC must perform for projects if specified requirements are met.
Streamlining Development; Ministerial Approvals
SB-79 (Wiener): The law allows more housing development near major public transportation stops, by upzoning land within ½ mile of specified major transit stops. Specifically, SB-79 allows multifamily housing up to specified heights, densities, and floor-area ratios on residential, mixed-use, and commercial land near rail and bus rapid transit. These development standards vary based on proximity, transit quality and status as an urban transit county (see table below). SB-79’s zoning standards are delayed until July 1, 2026, unless a local agency adopts an ordinance or alternative plan deemed compliant by the Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) before that date. SB-79 also provides transit agencies with the land use authority to develop residential and commercial projects on certain land they control, with limitations.
| TOD Stop Type |
Distance From Stop (TOD Zone) |
Standards for Project | |
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Tier 1: Major transit stops, heavy rail transit, or very high frequency commuter rail |
¼ mile from stop |
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¼ – ½ mile from stop in city with population at least 35,000 |
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Tier 2: Not-Tier-1 major transit stops served by light-rail transit, high-frequency commuter rail or bus rapid transit |
¼ mile from stop |
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¼ – ½ mile from stop in a city with a population at least 35,000 |
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Under this law, these transit-oriented developments are eligible for the streamlined ministerial approvals process under SB-423 provided the developments meet the law’s environmental, labor and affordability standards. The law requires a proposed development to comply with specified demolition and anti-displacement standards; not be located on sites where the development would require demolition of housing, or that was previously used for housing, that is subject to rent or price controls; include housing for lower-income households; be consistent with specified height, noise, safety and fire standards; and meet specified labor standards. The law also provides that a local government that denies a project meeting these requirements located in a high-resource area, as defined, would be presumed to be in violation of the Housing Accountability Act, and liable for penalties, beginning on Jan. 1, 2027.
AB-920 (Caloza): This law requires a city or county with a population of 150,000 or more persons to establish, no later than Jan. 1, 2028, a centralized application portal for housing development projects online.
AB-893 (Fong): The Affordable Housing and High Road Jobs Act of 2022 (AB-2021) authorizes, until Jan. 1, 2033, a development proponent to submit an application for an affordable housing development or a mixed-income housing development that meets specified objective standards and affordability/site criteria as a use by right and subject to one of two streamlined ministerial review processes.
AB-893 states that for purposes of determining whether a property or site satisfies the objective criteria to receive streamlined ministerial review, a local government’s review of the property or site is limited to the area described as being physically disturbed by construction in the application for streamlined ministerial review, unless explicitly stated otherwise. The law also extends AB-2011 streamlining to include developments located in a “Campus Development Zone,” provided the development meets certain affordability requirements and objective standards. A “Campus Development Zone” is defined as parcels that are contained either wholly or partially within a one-half-mile radius of a “main campus” of UC, CSU or a California community college.
SB-489 (Arreguín): The Permit Streamlining Act requires a public agency to compile a list of the information required from an applicant for a development project. This law requires a public agency, for each type of approval issued in connection with a housing development project, to publish this list online, including the criteria that the public agency will apply in order to determine the completeness of the development application and the name of the type of approval, as provided. This law also requires local agency formation commissions to post their application packets for changes of organization on their website.
AB-1061 (Quirk Silva): The law modifies historic resource designations that limit the single-family parcels eligible for ministerial approval of an urban lot split or a duplex development under SB-9 by deleting the absolute exemption for historic districts in SB-9 and instead excluding SB-9 duplex developments and urban lot splits on parcels or properties individually listed as historic resources or landmarks.
State Mandates on Local Jurisdictions
AB 253 (Ward): Until Jan. 1, 2036, the law allows homeowners and developers to hire third-party licensed professionals to conduct building plan checks for certain small-scale housing developments if it takes, or would take, the local building department longer than 30 days to conduct that review. The law would require an applicant who retains a private professional provider to notify the city or county of their intent to retain the private professional provider. The law also requires a county or city to prepare a residential building permit fee schedule and post the schedule on the county’s or city’s website if the county or city prescribes residential building permit fees.
AB-712 (Wicks): This law requires a court to award a housing developer reasonable attorney’s fees in cases where they are the prevailing party over a public agency in an action brought to enforce a housing reform law. The law prohibits a public agency from requiring the applicant to indemnify, defend or hold harmless a public agency in any action alleging the public agency violated the applicant’s rights or deprived the applicant of the benefits or protection provided by a housing reform law. The law defines “housing reform law” as a law that establishes or facilitates protections for applicants in housing development projects, or imposes limitations on a public agency for the benefit of such projects.
AB-1308 (Hoover): This law requires a building department to conduct an inspection of permitted work within 10 business days of receiving a notice of the completion of the permitted work authorized by a building permit issued for a housing project. These provisions apply to (1) new residential construction that contains at least one unit but no more than 10 units, contains only residential units and has no floors used for human occupancy located more than 40 feet above ground level, and (2) a residential addition to an existing building that contains one to nine dwelling units, contains only residential units and has no floors used for human occupancy located more than 40 feet above ground level, for the purpose of adding new residential units to the existing building, not to exceed 10 total units.
AB-1007 (Blanca Rubio): Existing law, the Permit Streamlining Act, requires a public agency that is the lead agency for certain development projects to approve or disapprove a development project within 90 days of the date on which the lead agency has approved the project or within 90 days of the date on which the completed application has been received and accepted as complete by the lead agency, whichever is longer. This law reduces the period that a responsible agency must approve or disapprove a project, as described above, from 90 days to 45 days, with some exceptions.
Local Governance
AB-1275 (Elhawary): This law requires the HCD to determine each region with a COG’s existing and projected housing need three years prior to each region’s scheduled housing element revision, rather than two years as under existing law, and makes changes to how the transportation and job projections in a region’s SCS must be incorporated into each COG’s final regional housing needs allocation (RHNA) plan.
AB-1445 (Haney): This law authorizes any city or county, except San Francisco, to establish a downtown revitalization and economic recovery financing district for the purpose of financing specified commercial-to-residential conversion projects with incremental tax revenues generated by commercial-to-residential conversion projects within the district. Prior legislation (AB-2488) created a similar financing district specifically for San Francisco.
AB 1021 (Wicks): This law makes numerous changes to the provisions that make housing developments an allowable use on land owned by a local educational agency (LEA) and exempts these housing developments from CEQA. The law provides that a proposed housing development project is eligible for a density bonus under certain conditions. The legislation is valid until Jan. 1, 2036.
Permitting
AB 301 (Schiavo): Existing law relating to housing development approval requires a local agency to compile a list of information needed to approve or deny a post-entitlement-phase permit and to post an example of a complete approved application and an example of a complete set of post-entitlement-phase permits for at least five types of housing development projects in the jurisdiction. This law would require a state agency to comply with the post-entitlement-phase permit requirements applicable to a local agency.
Density Bonus
SB-92 (Blakespear): This law limits the ability of development proponents to apply concessions, incentives and development waivers under the Density Bonus Law (DBL).AB-87 (Boerner): This law provides that a local government is not required to grant a concession or incentive under the DBL to a hotel or motel as part of a housing development project.
Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA)
AB-610 (Alvarez): This law requires a local government’s housing element to include a potential and actual governmental constraints disclosure statement containing specified potential constraints that the local government can anticipate adopting during the first three years of the subsequent planning period.
SB-507 (Limón): This law authorizes local governments to enter into voluntary agreements with tribes to allow new tribal housing developments to count toward the locality’s RHNA.
Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD)
SB-786 (Arreguín): This law makes changes to when local governments are considered to have a compliant housing element and the processes for challenging general plans in court. Specifically, the law provides that, to the extent that a quantified development standard contained in a general plan element is inconsistent with a quantified development standard contained in another element, the provisions of the most recently adopted element supersede inconsistent provisions of the previously adopted element. Further, the law requires HCD to undertake a housing element substantial compliance review if a local agency has established a specific deadline under a specified housing element law to amend a local ordinance, development standard, condition or policy applicable to quantified development standards or timelines or processes relating to entitlement and permitting decisions and the local agency has failed to make that amendment by the specified deadline.
SB-686 (Reyes): This law allows HCD to approve the payoff of an HCD loan in whole or part, prior to the end of its term, and the extraction of equity from a development for purposes approved by HCD.
SB 233 (Seyarto): This law revises deadlines for HCD to meet and consult with each COG in the regional housing needs determination process. For the seventh revision of the housing element, the law would require the department to meet and consult with each COG at least 38 months prior to the scheduled revision, except for specified COGs. For the eighth and subsequent revision of the housing element, the law would require the department to meet and consult with each COG at least 38 months prior to the scheduled revision.
AB 36 (Soria): Requires HCD to evaluate materials from a small rural jurisdiction’s housing element submission for evidence of pro-housing local policies and prohibits HCD from requiring those jurisdictions to renew their pro-housing designations for at least four years.
AB-413 (Fong): This law requires HCD to translate all guidelines that explain rights or services available to the public into any non-English languages spoken by a substantial number of non-English-speaking people.
SB-262 (Wahab): This law adds additional local policies related to tenant protections, housing stability and homelessness as pro-housing policies that HCD can consider in developing a pro-housing designation.
AB 1296 (Bonta): Requires HCD to create a form for LEAs to express interest in using their property for housing development and requires HCD to offer technical assistance to LEAs for predevelopment activities on such projects, especially in high-need or high-cost areas.
Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs)
AB-1154 (Carrillo): This law prohibits a local agency from imposing parking standards for ADUs that are 500 square feet or less. The law eliminates owner-occupancy requirements for junior ADUs (JADUs) if the JADU has sanitation facilities (e.g., a bathroom) that are separate from the main residence. The law requires JADU rentals to be for more than 30 days.
AB-462 (Lowenthal): This law exempts the construction of ADUs from the requirement to obtain a coastal development permit (CDP) in the County of Los Angeles and in any county that is subject to a governor’s proclamation of a state of emergency on or after Feb. 1, 2025, where housing is damaged, destroyed or made uninhabitable. The law is already in effect.
SB-543 (McNerney): This law makes numerous organizational, technical and clarifying changes to ADU and JADU law. Among other changes, this law revises the definition of a “junior accessory dwelling unit” to require a JADU to have no more than 500 square feet of interior livable space. Further, the law clarifies that references to the allowed square footage of an ADU or JADU are referring to square footage of “interior livable space.”
SB-9 (Arreguín): This law specifies that a local ordinance implementing ADU law is null and void if the local agency fails to submit a copy of the ordinance to HCD or if the local agency fails to respond to HCD’s findings within specified time frames.
SB-484 (Laird): This new law requires the California Coastal Commission to identify coastal zone infill areas in three jurisdictions where the commission retains coastal development permitting authority for a 10-year categorical exclusion from that permitting requirement for residential housing projects comprised entirely of very low-, low- and moderate-income housing units.
AB-726 (Ávila Farías): This law allows local governments to include in their Annual Progress Report (APR) the number of units of existing deed-restricted affordable housing that have been substantially rehabilitated with at least $60,000 per unit in funds from the local government.
AB-670 (Quirk-Silva): This law makes changes to the information that local governments must report in their APR each year regarding demolished and replacement units and allows local governments to report the number of units in an existing multifamily building that were converted to affordable housing, for up to 25 percent of a jurisdiction’s RHNA for lower-income units.
AB-480 (Quirk Silva): This law removes the requirement that a taxpayer elect to sell (also known as certificate) a low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC) after receiving an award of credits and allows a taxpayer to choose to certificate the credit after credits are awarded.
Affordable Housing and Homelessness
AB-1050 (Schultz): This law expands the existing process whereby a purchaser of a property can remove a covenant, condition or restriction limiting the property’s use for affordable housing to include properties subject to limitations requiring that the property remain exclusively used for commercial purposes.
SB-634 (Pérez): This law prohibits a local jurisdiction from adopting a local ordinance, or enforcing an existing ordinance, that prohibits a person or organization from providing support services to a person who is homeless or assisting with acts related to basic survival.
SB-838 (Durazo): This law revises the definition of a “housing development project” in the Housing Accountability Act (HAA) to exclude projects that include any hotel or motel space in the commercial portion of a project.
AB 457 (Soria): Expands the streamlined ministerial approval process for farmworker housing in the counties of Fresno, Madera and Merced.
AB 678 (Lee): Requires the California Interagency Council on Homelessness (Cal-ICH) to identify policies and best practices for culturally competent services for LGBTQ+ people experiencing homelessness.
AB-790 (Ávila Farías): This law adds “women with children” to the Homeless Equity for Left Behind Populations (HELP) Act. It also requires cities, counties and continuums of care to provide all analyses or goals required by the HELP Act to Cal-ICH.
AB-806 (Connolly): This law prohibits management or ownership of mobile home parks from restricting a homeowner’s ability to install a cooling system in their mobile home, with some exceptions.
AB-391 (Michelle Rodriguez): This law authorizes notices required by the Mobile Home Residency Law (MRL) to be delivered to a homeowner by Feb. 1 of each year by electronic mail if the homeowner or resident has provided affirmative written consent to receive notices by electronic mail and management provides a notice within five days of the homeowner’s or resident’s election to receive electronic mail notices and their right to revoke the agreement at any time.
AB-456 (Connolly): This law modifies rules relating to the sale or transfer of a mobile home that will remain in the park and provides that, if park management fails or refuses to notify a seller or prospective purchaser of specified information, certain rights for management to require repairs or improvements to the mobile home or to deny the tenancy application of a prospective purchaser is waived.
SB-748 (Richardson): This law allows the Encampment Resolution Funding (ERF) program to apply to safe parking sites and creates additional reporting requirements for the ERF program by requiring local jurisdictions that include safe parking sites in their application to describe specified details.
SB 340 (Laird): This legislation revises the definition of “emergency shelters” to include on-site support services.
SB-21 (Durazo): This law allows the demolition of single-room occupancy units without the full replacement of demolished units if the units are converted into affordable housing.
AB-754 (Connolly): This law modifies an existing state floating home rent cap and certain fee provisions for floating homes in marinas in the county of Marin, until Jan. 1, 2038.
Building Standards
SB-655 (Stern): This law establishes that the state's policy is that all dwelling units must be able to attain and maintain a safe maximum indoor temperature. The law requires all relevant state agencies to consider this state policy when revising, adopting or establishing policies, programs and criteria, including grant criteria, that are relevant to achieving the state policy and, beginning Jan. 1, 2027, when revising, adopting or establishing regulations that are relevant to achieving this state policy.
Homeowners Association
SB-410 (Grayson): The law requires the owner of a separate interest to provide a copy of the report issued from the most recent inspection of exterior elevated elements in a common interest development (CID) to a prospective purchaser of the separate interest, requires inspection reports to contain specified information and requires homeowners associations (HOAs) to preserve inspection reports as association records.
SB-770 (Allen): This law eliminates the requirement that an HOA be named on an electric vehicle charging station’s insurance policy.
Disaster
AB-818 (Ávila Farías): For people displaced by a disaster, this law requires cities/counties to approve or deny a complete application, within 10 business days of receipt of a complete application, for a building permit or an equivalent permit for certain structures until the rebuilding or repair of a property destroyed or damaged by a natural disaster is complete.
AB-299 (Gabriel): This law states that until Jan. 1, 2031, a guest of a lodging shall not have their continued occupancy constitute a new tenancy and shall not be considered a person who hires for purposes of existing law governing tenancy and unlawful detainer proceedings if the guest is living in the lodging as a result of their prior housing being damaged, destroyed or otherwise made uninhabitable by a disaster.
SB-610 (Pérez): This law imposes new requirements on a mobile home park owner or a landlord of residential property if a property is damaged or destroyed by a declared emergency or disaster. Among other provisions, the legislation specifies that, for any structure intended for human habitation, it shall be the responsibility of a landlord to undertake one or both of the following:
(1) The removal of debris caused by the disaster
(2) The mitigation of hazards arising from the disaster, including but not limited to the presence of mold, smoke, smoke residue, smoke odor, ash, asbestos or water damage
SB-625 (Wahab): This law (1) creates a streamlined ministerial approval process for rebuilding residential structures damaged in a disaster, (2) establishes timelines for HOAs to review development proposals, (3) limits the scope of covenants and other instruments that would prohibit a property owner from rebuilding a residential structure destroyed in a declared disaster and, (4) prohibits local agencies from preventing property owners from living in a mobile home on their property for up to three years following a disaster.
Nonsubstantive
AB 1529 (Committee on Housing and Community Development. Housing omnibus.): This law makes nonsubstantive technical changes to housing law.
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Associate -
Deputy Chair, Real Estate