Body
California cities are moving into a final crunch over how to respond to Senate Bill 79, a sweeping state housing law that allows mid-rise apartment buildings near certain transit stops and requires cities to revise zoning. The law takes effect July 1, and local officials say the deadline is arriving as they work to decide whether to apply the state rules directly, draft city-specific alternatives, or use delay provisions built into the statute.
SB 79, passed by state lawmakers last fall, makes it legal for developers to build mid-rises—some as tall as nine stories—in major metro neighborhoods near train, subway and certain dedicated bus stops. But the final version of the bill, according to the reporting, provided local governments “wiggle room” over where, when and how those changes take hold.
Los Angeles became an early test case for that discretion when the city council voted last month to overhaul part of its zoning map in a bid to buy additional planning time. The city used escape clauses in state law that can let transit-adjacent areas off the hook for at least a year after the next state-mandated planning period, with Los Angeles planning for compliance in 2030. The delay option can also apply to areas tied to higher barriers such as wildfire risk, sea-level rise exposure and designated historic preservation registry sites.
In addition to temporarily exempting zoning changes in poorer neighborhoods, fire zones and historic districts, Los Angeles also preemptively approved allowing smaller multiplex buildings—up to three or four stories—in dozens of higher-income neighborhoods that had been restricted to single-family homes. The city’s planning staff said the approach would move those areas above a cut-off threshold needed to qualify for the four-year reprieve, and that the city would trade some short-term density for more time to develop an alternative that still complies with the law.
Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky described the move as a way to increase capacity now while preserving time for a longer-term plan. “The vote ‘adds meaningful housing capacity now and gives us time to decide where the rest of density should go within our own communities,’” she said before the vote, according to the story.
The Los Angeles delay strategy drew criticism from pro-development groups that argued the city should implement the densification right away or adopt more aggressive steps instead of seeking delay. Scott Epstein, policy and research director with Abundant Housing Los Angeles, said he was “pretty concerned that this is not actually going to produce housing.” He argued that smaller apartment buildings are less likely to be financially feasible where land costs are exceptionally high, and that Los Angeles’ ordinance raises allowable density by permitting apartment buildings in relatively affluent neighborhoods.
Even some backers of SB 79 saw some practical value in Los Angeles’ approach. Aaron Eckhouse, local policy programs director for California YIMBY and a sponsor of SB 79, said it was disappointing because it would delay the full potential of the law, but noted that Los Angeles officials have long resisted changes in neighborhoods dominated by single-family homes. Eckhouse said the city was effectively adopting an approach “on our terms rather than on the state’s terms,” while still operating under the broader state requirement that “it is still happening, because the state forced the issue.”
San Francisco is weighing a different path, with officials considering whether to exempt industrial areas and many low-resource neighborhoods while adjusting density in certain low-rise areas to clear a 50% threshold. Unlike Los Angeles, the reporting said San Francisco did not plan to spend years crafting a separate replacement, and instead proposed rolling out its version before July 1. That local effort was described as being helped by a citywide densification push completed last year under Mayor Daniel Lurie’s “Family Zoning Plan,” and the current proposal is set to be heard by a Board of Supervisors subcommittee later this month.
For cities that choose to craft their own plans, state approval remains a key unknown. Officials from California’s Department of Housing have not publicly weighed in on any individual city’s approach, the story said, but Gov. Gavin Newsom has criticized Los Angeles and San Diego in social media posts for proposed efforts to shield parts of their cities from SB 79 requirements. Newsom, in the reporting, did not suggest the cities were violating the law itself.
Other municipalities are still deciding how much work to undertake before July 1. Sacramento, for example, is expected to consider an ordinance making limited tweaks to how it handles development applications subject to the state law while leaving the state-set zoning rules intact, according to the story. Jason Rhine, a lobbyist with the League of California Cities and an opponent of the bill during the Legislature, said some smaller cities may accept the requirements because they have fewer professional planners and smaller budgets. He also argued cities are still trying to understand how the statute applies in practice, including how it addresses future transit infrastructure and how the law defines distance from a transit stop.
In Oakland, the debate over whether to delay or accept the state upzoning has played out at the neighborhood level. The story said Oakland’s planning staff last month proposed an ordinance to take the full suite of possible delays to buy time for an alternative plan, emphasizing that it was not about opposing the goals of the state law but about allowing planners to reconsider the city’s plan comprehensively. Oakland Planning Director William Gilchrist told the council there was “no dispute over outcome” and that he believed the issue “really comes down to a question of when and how.”
Even so, three Oakland council members objected to using the delay across their districts, as the story described it. Zac Unger argued that parcels already meeting the 50% density threshold should not qualify for exemptions in his North Oakland district, particularly because many of the parcels sit along busy commercial corridors. Charlene Wang and Ken Houston, who represent low-resource neighborhoods also entitled to delay, also wanted to adopt the state’s requirements sooner, with the story quoting Wang saying that in an urban area like Oakland, officials “should be far exceeding the density minimums in (state law).”
Unger later suggested the Oakland debate may carry more symbolism than impact, pointing to the fact that city planners had been working toward a comprehensive zoning map overhaul intended to be completed next year. “If we implement SB 79 on July 1 of this year instead of July 1 of next year, there won’t be buildings blowing up from the street,” he said. He framed the choice as one about timing and values, calling it “a matter of urgency — and a statement of values.”
The reporting also describes a possible additional category of local resistance: cities that resist the law entirely. It compared the situation to earlier pushback after a 2021 law that allowed homeowners to split properties into as many as four units, where some cities pursued court challenges or explored other measures. Eckhouse said that if SB 79 met similar resistance, local opponents might not face the practical consequences until after the July 1 deadline, because “the reason to do something now is either to lean into it or to use the provisions of the law for flexibility and deferrals,” while he said plans to “stand in the door and say ‘no’” may not be fully tested until the zoning standards take effect.