A group of California lawmakers have unveiled 22 proposed bills that aim to make home building easier and home buying more affordable in the Golden State. The bi-partisan and bi-cameral group hopes to expedite the sweeping “Fast Track Housing” package through the state’s Legislature.
Proponents say the new laws could help builders navigate the state’s tough environmental regulations and help residents find affordable homes in a state where a housing crunch has caused home prices to spike and rental costs to surge in the past few years.
At a press conference on March 27, seven legislators revealed the slate of bills they want to “fast track” through the legislative process. They aim to “slash red tape, remove uncertainty, and drastically diminish the time it takes to get new housing approved and built,” Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks announced.
“Right now, it takes far too long to build the housing Californians need—and that’s a failure of government,” Wicks said. “The Fast Track Housing package is about making our systems work better: clearer rules, faster timelines, and fewer bureaucratic hoops.”
The regulations are not designed to cut corners, Wicks said.
“It’s about being honest that what we’re doing isn’t working,” she said.
Wicks was joined by Assemblymembers Matt Haney, Tina McKinnor, Juan Carrillo, Josh Hoover, David Alvarez, Sen. Tim Grayson, and Alex Fisch, special assistant to California Attorney General Rob Bonta.
The California Association of Realtors (CAR) estimates that the state’s median home price could climb another 4.6 percent to $909,400 in 2025. The price rose by a projected 6.8 percent in 2024 to reach $869,500, according to the association.
“Housing supply conditions will continue to improve next year, but a moderate increase rather than a surge in active listings should be expected in 2025,” CAR wrote in its 2025 California Housing Market Forecast in September 2024.
During his campaign for governor in 2017, Gov. Gavin Newsom promised to lead an effort to develop the 3.5 million new housing units he said California needed by this year.
Despite efforts to make housing more affordable, the state is home to nearly 190,000 homeless people, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.
“We desperately need permitting reform to create clear, consistent standards so that housing projects can move forward efficiently,” Haney said on Friday. “If we are serious about addressing our housing crisis, we must make it much easier to get to ‘yes’ on housing.”
A new housing project overlooks a rural landscape in San Bernardino County, near Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., on July 11, 2007. David McNew/Getty Images
Housing Bills
The slate of proposed bills targets five bottlenecks that lawmakers say delay housing development: applications, environmental compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), entitlement, post-entitlement, and enforcement of the state’s housing laws.
In a housing context, “entitlement” is the legal process and approvals needed to develop housing, including zoning, permits, and environmental clearance. “Post-entitlement” refers to the permitting and review process after a housing project has been approved for zoning and other land use requirements.
Assembly Bill 1294, authored by Haney, aims to establish a statewide uniform application for housing projects that comply with local laws. It would create consistency across jurisdictions and prevent local jurisdictions from making it harder to build “by asking for costly and unnecessary studies and materials,” according to a statement by Wicks. The bill is sponsored by Abundant Housing L.A., a pro-housing nonprofit in Los Angeles County.
Assembly Bill 609, proposed by Wicks, is a bill designed to create an exemption from CEQA for housing projects that are compliant with local laws and in environmentally friendly locations. The bill is sponsored by the statewide housing advocacy group California YIMBY and the Bay Area Council, a business association in San Francisco.
Senate Bill 607, introduced by Sen. Scott Wiener, is a bill to incorporate several reforms to CEQA that the legislator says would benefit housing projects, including focusing analysis and expanding exemptions. The bill is sponsored by the housing and business advocacy groups Bay Area Council, Housing Action Coalition, Rural County Representative of California, and Prosperity CA.
Assembly Bill 357, authored by Alvarez, is legislation to exempt student housing developed by a public institution of higher education, or a qualified nonprofit, from review by the California Coastal Commission, a quasi-judicial agency charged with protecting the state’s coast. The bill is sponsored by the Student Homes Coalition and the University of California Student Association.
Construction workers work on the roof of a house being built in Alhambra, Calif., on Sept. 23, 2024. Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images
Assembly Bill 920, offered by Assemblymember Jessica Caloza, would require larger cities to have a centralized application portal for all permits across departments to allow tracking of applications in real time. The proposal is sponsored by the Abundant Housing L.A. nonprofit organization.
Assembly Bill 961, authored by Assemblymember Anamarie Avila Farias, proposes to extend the sunset for the California Land Recycling and Reuse Act of 2004, which provides liability protections to buyers, landowners, and contiguous property owners, to promote the cleanup and redevelopment of blighted contaminated properties. The bill is sponsored by the business association Bay Area Council.
Assembly Bill 1007, proposed by Sen. Susan Rubio, would expedite the approval of housing by shortening the time frame for state and regional agencies to decide on applications for housing projects. The bill is sponsored by the California Building Industry Association (CBIA), a statewide trade organization.
Assembly Bill 1276, sponsored by Carrillo, would increase certainty for housing developers by locking regulatory rules in place at the time of an application. State and local agencies would also have to use a “reasonable person” standard—or a legal benchmark to determine what a prudent person would do in similar circumstances—when considering whether a housing project is consistent with a regulatory plan. The bill is sponsored by the CBIA.
Senate Bill 328, authored by Grayson, speeds up the remediation and reuse of contaminated sites by putting timelines on the state’s Department of Toxic Substances Control to respond to housing permit requests. It also caps fees for reviewing the remediation of sites that were not contaminated by the project sponsor. The bill is sponsored by the Housing Action Coalition and SPUR, a nonprofit promoting good planning and good government based in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Senate Bill 489, offered by Sen. Jesse Arreguin, would plug gaps in the permitting process, requiring state and regional agencies to post their application requirements online. The bill is sponsored by CBIA.
Senate Bill 677, by Wiener, proposes to improve the efficacy of two major housing laws to increase the feasibility of projects. The bill is sponsored by CA YIMBY, the Housing Action Coalition, and LISC-SD, a San Diego-based affordable housing coalition.
Assembly Bill 557, by McKinnor, would make it easier to save costs by removing local inspections on factory-built housing that is already inspected by the state. The bill is sponsored by SoLA Impact, a family of social impact real estate funds in Los Angeles.
Assembly Bill 660, by Assemblywoman Lori Wilson, would make it faster to build projects by allowing a third party to review building permits if they are not reviewed by a local agency in a timely way. The bill is sponsored by the CBIA.
Assembly Bill 1026, also by Wilson, would require investor-owned utilities to follow the same rules as local governments when it comes to reviewing and approving post-entitlement permits. The bill is sponsored by the Housing Action Coalition.
Assembly Bill 1206, by Assemblyman John Harabedian, would reduce costs by requiring cities to speed up the building permit approval for housing projects that have been previously approved.
Assembly Bill 1308, by Hoover, would expedite the building process by requiring building departments to provide an estimated timeframe for permit inspections, and allows applicants to contract with private professionals to do inspections. The bill is sponsored by CA YIMBY.
The California state capital building in Sacramento, Calif., on March 16, 2025. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times
Assembly Bill 610, by Alvarez, would prevent local governments from making it more difficult to build housing by precluding the adoption of stricter local regulations, unless the rules were previously considered in the local Housing Element. The bill is sponsored by CBIA and SPUR.
Assembly Bill 712, by Wicks, would enforce state housing laws by increasing penalties for local and state agencies that violate housing statutes, in keeping with the Housing Accountability Act.
Assembly Bill 1050, by Assemblymember Nick Schultz, would promote the redevelopment of underused commercial sites by prohibiting private reciprocal easement agreements from preventing housing if the site is already zoned for housing. The bill is sponsored by SPUR.
Senate Bill 786, by Arreguin, would resolve several ambiguities in housing law to provide clarification for local governments, project applicants, and courts. The bill is sponsored by Bonta.
Jill McLaughlin
Author
Jill McLaughlin is an award-winning journalist covering politics, environment, and statewide issues. She has been a reporter and editor for newspapers in Oregon, Nevada, and New Mexico. Jill was born in Yosemite National Park and enjoys the majestic outdoors, traveling, golfing, and hiking.
