Why An SB330 Pre-application Is Essential For Every Infill Housing Project
Sibley meets with Clay Toombs, Senior Development Manager at Workbench, to discuss SB-330 pre-applications. We talk about what submitting the application really means, our top tips for getting it right and when to resubmit one, what to make sure the jurisdiction does and doesn’t do and other best practices.
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Key Takeaways
California has passed 100+ housing bills in the last decade, but implementation remains complex
Projects that were illegal just years ago can now go from design to construction in under 15 months
Most local zoning rules don't apply to most housing development projects
State law can unlock higher density and faster permitting than commonly understood
Resources Mentioned
California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD)
State housing legislation and court rulings
Workbench development projects
References
https://www.hcd.ca.gov/
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=GOV§ionNum=65941.1.Credits
Host: Sibley Simon, Principal at Workbench
Episode Length: 3:06
Episode Type: Using SB330 Preliminary Application for Infill Projects
Recording, Editing & Animation: Josh Bootz
Assistant Producer: Wednesday Manners -
Episode Chapters:
00:00:00 - Welcome & Podcast Introduction
00:00:32 - Today's Topic: SB 330 Pre-Applications
00:00:52 - Host Introduction: Sibley Simon's Journey
00:03:07 - Guest Introduction: Clay Toombs
00:03:29 - Traditional Pre-Apps vs. SB 330 Pre-Apps
00:06:01 - The Big Reason: Locking in Development Standards
00:07:17 - Real-World Example: The Cost of Timing
00:09:10 - Understanding State Law Overrides
00:12:10 - The Critical 180-Day Deadline
00:14:49 - What Information is Required?
00:20:32 - The Site Map Challenge
00:24:11 - Environmental Constraints
00:29:28 - Unit Count and Project Details
00:34:30 - Demolition and Tenant Protections
00:38:26 - Subdivision Maps: To Include or Not?
00:41:20 - Common Jurisdiction Mistakes
00:44:25 - When Cities Don't Know the Rules
00:46:40 - The Double-Edged Sword
00:51:17 - Grading the Law: What Works, What Doesn't
00:56:55 - A Better Way: Proposed Solutions
01:01:04 - Looking Forward: Future Improvements
01:03:27 - Closing ThoughtsSB 330 Pre-Applications: The Critical First Step in California Housing Development
Introduction
Sibley Simon: Welcome to the Infill Insiders podcast where we break down the highly complex process of infill housing development in California. We're sharing Workbench's experience to help developers and landowners know how to use the many state housing laws to develop more infill housing. Also to help jurisdictions do a more effective job with their part of the process and to help elected officials, activists, and anyone interested to learn more about the big challenges that remain within infill housing development and how those might be addressed in the future.
I'm your host Sibley Simon, and today we're going to be talking about what are often called SB 330 pre-applications—a very important specific step in the development process but one that is typically misunderstood.
About Your Host
But first, before we get into the rest of the episode, I'm gonna introduce myself a little bit. I grew up in a rural farming area in Washington state, have lived in a few different parts of the United States, but for nearly 20 years, I've been here in Santa Cruz, California.
In the early 2010s, after having been a software entrepreneur in my first career, I started volunteering more and more around chronic homelessness and changing the system so that more folks got out of long-term homelessness. But that just made me so much more passionate—even as we made progress with that, homelessness has not been coming down in California.
So we became more passionate about the housing crisis and how it affects everyone with everything from environmental impacts to worsening health outcomes to increasing poverty rates, and just we cannot have successful communities without solving it. So 11 years ago, I decided to become a housing developer and to really have a personal mission around helping our infill housing supply, helping create more affordable housing that's less publicly funded, because there's not enough public funds to solve that problem, and to help address the racial equity issues around housing and housing development as well.
But this podcast is not specifically about that. It's really to share what I and others have learned on this journey, because in this 11 years, after I started New Way Homes, a nonprofit fund to help fund more affordable housing, and then became a principal in Workbench, which is a development and design and build firm that focuses on infill housing. We've learned a ton because the process for development in California has radically changed in that period of time, and that now it can be more successful, it can produce more of the housing we really need, but a whole new type of expertise is needed, which is how to square all these housing laws at the state level that evolve every year with all of the local zoning and processes that have existed for much longer, and how to successfully navigate that to create infill housing. So this podcast is really gonna share that information, and hopefully have an impact on creating more infill housing in California.
Guest Introduction
Sibley: I'm here with Clay Toombs, who's Senior Development Manager at Workbench. So just in a couple of sentences, what do you typically work on?
Clay Toombs: So I work on getting entitlements. I mean, that's my big responsibility. So going through the process with the cities to get approval for a development permit to build on housing projects.
Sibley: I'm always a little envious of the amount of time Clay gets to spend really diving into getting things right, especially if it pertains to process on entitlements. And so I'm really glad you're here to talk to us about SB 330 pre-applications.
Understanding SB 330 Pre-Applications
Sibley: So it's not the very first thing you do on a development project, because you've got to figure out the project and get ready. But it's often the first thing where you're interacting with the jurisdiction. And the unfortunate part of that is this is an often misunderstood and misprocessed part of the development process. And so it kind of starts out immediately with often with some rough waters and with the interaction with the local jurisdiction.
I think one reason for that is that, well, this is pretty new, created in 2019, the Housing Crisis Act of 2019. That's why we call it SB 330. But cities and counties have been doing pre-apps for a long, long time. But this is not that. Can you explain a little bit what's the pre-application that cities have been doing?
Clay: Right. So normally a pre-application prior to 2019 was informal. You submitted something to the city that said, I'm thinking about doing this development and here's the way it might look. And I want to talk to you about all of your code and requirements and what is going to be required to get this project approved. And sometimes you'd go down and sit with the city. And a lot of times they would sit down with you. They would bring in fire, police, everybody, go through your application. And at the end of that time, you would get a set of comments back and you'd take those comments back and maybe decide not to do your project or maybe decide I want to change my project or submit that project formally for an application.
Sibley: And so there was nothing binding or legally critical about that process, but it was a way to get the best understanding before you actually formally submit an application for a housing development project.
Clay: Correct. And you can still do that.
The Critical Purpose of SB 330
Sibley: So there's one big reason to do an SB 330 pre-application. What is that?
Clay: It's to lock in the development standards that apply for that site in that jurisdiction on that date that you submitted it. It places a flag. It sets a line in the sand that says only those regulations, local regulations that were in place on the date that you submitted the SB 330 preliminary application will apply to that project all the way through until you get a certificate of occupancy after the project is fully constructed and signed off by the building department. And so that applies to anything local. It applies to all kinds of development standards and it applies to the fees that were enforced on that date as well. And so you want to do that because it didn't work that way before.
Why This Matters: Real-World Impact
Sibley: Let me just share real quickly an example of why this really matters. So our company was working on a project, and we had gotten pretty far through the design. We had a development agreement with the landowner. We'd probably spent already $50,000 or maybe even as much as $100,000 in the design. And the project was going to have 18 units. And then the jurisdiction decided to do a better job with its objective design standards, which are the rules that you have to follow for any housing development project. And they passed new rules.
And one of those new rules was a maximum density that was going to be about 12 units on that property. And since we'd already gotten that far through it, we knew that our project no longer worked. And in fact, they had other rules about setbacks and other things that made it even so it really wasn't going to work. And we had to abandon the project. But if we had submitted an SB 330 pre-app earlier, then those rules would not have mattered. Those rules wouldn't have applied to our project.
The 180-Day Deadline
Sibley: So a couple of really important things to know, and we'll get into some of the details. There's something that is very confusing and concerning to me as a developer, which is you have 180 days after you submit an SB 330 pre-app to submit your full formal application for your housing development permit.
Clay: So when we say we're locking in the development standards and the fees and all these things, if you don't move forward with this project in 180 days, those things unlock. And so it's as if you didn't submit the SB 330 in the first place. And so it becomes moot. And so what happens is all the effort you've put in to get this application in has been wasted and you have to start all over again if you want to get those same protections.
What Information is Required?
Sibley: Let's get into the details. What information do you have to provide?
Clay: Well, Government Code 65941.1 gives you a specific list of 17 things that you need to provide for the SB 330 preliminary application. Some of them are really easy:
Your name and contact information
The applicant's name and contact information
The property address
The assessor parcel number
But there are things that are a little more complex:
A site map showing the property that you're developing and its boundaries
The existing uses on the site (what's there today)
The proposed uses (what you're planning to build)
Environmental constraints
The proposed number of units (both market rate and affordable)
Whether you're going to demolish any units
Information about protected tenants
Whether you're subdividing the property
The 20% Modification Rule
Sibley: Now there's this modification rule. You can change your project by 20% after filing the pre-app. But here's the problem—nobody knows what 20% means. Is it 20% of the square footage? 20% of the units? 20% of the height? The law doesn't specify, and every jurisdiction interprets it differently.
Clay: And frankly, it doesn't matter because what we tell all of our clients and all the developers we work with is just submit another SB 330. It costs $300-600 typically. Just submit another one if you're going to make significant changes. Don't worry about whether it's 20% or not.
Common Jurisdiction Mistakes
Sibley: One of the challenges is that jurisdictions often don't understand SB 330 themselves. Can you talk about some of the common mistakes you see?
Clay: The biggest issue is that many jurisdictions have created their own forms that don't actually match what the law requires. They'll add requirements that aren't in the statute, or they'll ask for much more detailed information than what's required for a preliminary application.
For example, some jurisdictions want full architectural drawings, even though the law specifically says this is a preliminary application. They might want detailed environmental studies when all that's required is a basic identification of potential constraints.
Sibley: And sometimes they just don't know the law exists at all.
Clay: That's right. We've had situations where we submit an SB 330 pre-app and the planning department says, "What's this? We don't have a process for this." And we have to educate them about their obligations under state law.
When NOT to Use SB 330
Sibley: Are there times when you shouldn't file an SB 330 pre-app?
Clay: Absolutely. If you're doing a really straightforward project that already complies with all current zoning and you can get through the process quickly, you might not need it. Also, if you're not ready to move forward within 180 days, don't file it because you'll lose the protection anyway.
Most importantly, if you're trying to do something that doesn't comply with current objective standards and you're hoping the rules might change in your favor, filing an SB 330 locks in the current rules that don't work for you.
Grading the Law
Sibley: So if you were to grade this law, what would you give it?
Clay: I'd give it a B+. It provides really important protections for developers and creates certainty in a very uncertain process. But it's more complex than it needs to be. The 180-day deadline creates unnecessary pressure, and the 20% modification rule is confusingly vague.
Sibley: What would make it an A?
Clay: A simple notice of intent. You file a one-page document that says: "I intend to develop housing on this property under the rules that exist today." Period. No 17-item checklist, no detailed plans, no 180-day deadline. Just a simple flag in the ground that locks in the current rules.
Looking Forward
Sibley: What is one idea that you would love to have be true that might happen in the future to make development in California, infill housing development, easier?
Clay: Probably the biggest thing, and it's been talked about for a long time, and it's been talked about in this legislative session, is to create a statewide list of required items for the full housing development permit application. So to do for the eventual full formal housing development permit application what was done for SB 330, which is to say these are the things that are required statewide. So that each jurisdiction doesn't come up with their own.
Under state law now, each jurisdiction is required to create a list of required information, LORI, for the types of development applications that they do in their jurisdiction. But it's left entirely up to the jurisdiction what to require on that. And a lot of times they require things that just frankly are costly for no reason at all.
Most of the things that you have to fill out and do, these early things, have more to do with really intended to respond to CEQA. And now we have this great new CEQA exemption for infill housing most of the time. In very rare cases it won't apply, but it doesn't require you to say, for example, do a full traffic study. So you shouldn't have to do a full traffic study in order to have an application if it's not required.
Sibley: So the idea there, you're saying, is we did it in 2019, Housing Crisis Act for pre-applications. Statewide, where the form, it's the same stuff. 17 things that are on there. You can read it in law anywhere you go in California. That's how you do a pre-app. Let's do it for an actual infill housing application. Let's hope that happens. The Housing Crisis Act of 2026 can make that happen.
Clay: It's hard to believe that we're seven years in and we're still just as much a housing crisis.
Closing
Sibley: So that's the end. We expect our next episode, a couple of our next episodes to be about that CEQA exemption, about SB 79, one of the biggest bills passed this year. So come back for that.
You can also, if you found this helpful at all, please, we're in early days here, please give us a like, a five stars, a thumbs up, whatever. Subscribe to this podcast video, whatever it is, please do that. It'll really help us.
And if you're burning to send us a question or comment, no hate, man, we'll get plenty of that. If you're burning to send us comments or questions or requests, insiders@workbenchbuilt.com is an email address just affiliated with this podcast. Shoot us a message. Someday we'll get fancier and have other platforms ways to contact us, but send us that email. It's in the description.
So thanks for listening to the Infill Insiders and we'll see you next time on another exciting topic.
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Who Are The Infill Insiders?
The Infill Insiders break down the highly complex process of infill housing development in California. Host and principal developer, Sibley Simon, shares Workbench's experience to teach developers and land owners how to use the many state housing laws to successfully develop infill housing, while showing jurisdictions what makes the process more efficient, and encouraging elected officials and anyone interested to face the big challenges that still remain in housing creation. Join us and become more effective at creating infill housing.Hosted by
Sibley Simon
Principal & Impact Development Executive, WorkbenchSibley leads the Workbench development team's impact focused projects geared towards creating more affordable housing without public subsidy. With years of experience driving legislative progress, he’s forged strong alliances with leaders dedicated to tackling California’s housing equity challenges. Before joining Workbench, Sibley founded numerous companies and created an impact investment fund to spur new workforce and affordable housing development.
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