It should be a net positive if it doesn't die in the courts for every single proposal.
It's also not enough by itself but Rome wasn't built in a day.
Frankly, this strategy seems to be a good one considering what a winning streak CA YIMBYs have been on.
* The approvals are designed to be "ministerial", meaning there is no discretion on whether to approve or not. If the project meets the objective criteria spelled out in the law, it must be approved.
* If the city doesn't approve in a limited time window, it's deemed "approved" by default.
* Ministerial approval protects the project from CEQA lawsuits. CEQA requires the government to consider the environment when making decisions. When the approval is ministerial, the government doesn't make any decisions, so there is no CEQA process to sue against.
I don't understand this narrative that California has been pushing the last few years - basically, "There's a bus stop in the neighborhood, therefore we can add a bunch of new housing without doing any other infrastructure upgrades." I just don't see it. What I do see after new housing is added is insufferable traffic and no parking - and empty buses.
This discussion is and has always been centered around the housing crisis in urban centers, where it's been illegal to build density for decades. This has caused issues where those urban centers can't afford for people to provide critical services ( like teachers, laborers, medical staff, social services workers, etc) because housing simply doesn't exist at a price they can afford. Unless the suggestion is to make do with crumbling community services, housing reform is mandatory.
You also do now understand people in urban areas and their desires. For example look at Seattle, which has added a lot of population, but only added 1 car per 30 new people:
https://www.theurbanist.org/2025/09/07/while-seattle-populat...
For a few generations, 99% of housing that was built was car dependent. That's not what the market wants. So when options are provided that allow living without a car, people flock to it.
CA lawmakers seem to pass laws focused on cities, and ignore the fact that maybe this isn't such a good idea in smaller towns & rural areas.
* The projects won't be profitable in smaller towns, because rents aren't high enough to recoup the cost.
* Tall buildings cost MORE per square foot than short buildings, so tall buildings only get built where land costs are very high.
* This law's top density (7-8 floors I think?) only applies in a narrow window (0.25 to 0.5 miles) around major transit stops with LOTS of service, like < 15 minute bus intervals with dedicated BRT lanes, or trains with > 48 arrivals per day each way. Small towns don't have that kind of infrastructure.
* The law only applies in cities with > 35,000 people.
It's a lower limit for bus stops, and my understanding is that bus stations only count if they have dedicated bus lanes, <15 minute headways, and meet some other requirements. I've never seen dedicated bus lanes in a rural area (which are basically exempt for the law for other reasons) and you're lucky if your headways are under an hour lol
If not for that the headline we might see in the news: California towns rip out transit systems. Already this might create some weird incentives to oppose transit expansions.
I saw the author of this book give a talk earlier this year and found his point of view pretty convincing: https://islandpress.org/books/building-people#desc
That's still a massive win. To replace 10 single family homes supporting 2-3 people each with a 9 story building supporting many multiples of that is a win for society.
If the people chasing 3 and 4 bedroom apartments accepted smaller rooms, they could still be economical vs studio/1/2 BR apartments and condos.
The only people who don't like to see "young people" paying $2500 in rent instead of $3500 for a 400sqft studio are landlords.
Building 1/2 bedrooms would help those people move out, freeing up larger units for families.
> I fear it's just going to enrich the property management class
The property management class benefits most from the current system with no construction and high rents. Building a bunch of 1/2 bedrooms, triggering lower rents, would cause them to lose money.
How about all the empty nesters that are sitting on 4 bedroom homes but are unwilling to move. Are you going to propose legislation to make them?
Will you propose legislation to specially encourage more multi bedroom homes?
The attitude of "this doesn't benefit a narrow band of people that I want to benefit, therefore it must be stopped" is why California is in such a housing mess right now.
Your information is at least two decades, maybe three, out of date.
But this bill will help lower rents, which is a very worthy goal in and of itself.
The ship has already sailed on the redistribution, because 1) California created an artificial housing shortage from regulatory capture by home owners, and 2) condo defect law differs so much from SFH defect law that it's almost always insane to sell condos instead of renting apartments.
This is not the doing of SB 79, this was Boomers deciding to milk future generations and prevent them from having the same easy opportunity that they enjoyed.
standardUser•2h ago