Inside SB79 California's New Transit-Oriented Upzoning Law
Aaron Ekhouse, the Local and Regional Policy Program Director for California YIMBY, returns to discuss SB 79, California's landmark transit-oriented housing upzoning bill, passed in 2025 after eight years of legislative attempts. The law requires certain jurisdictions to allow mid-rise apartment buildings (typically 4-7 stories) near major transit stops. Aaron has spent eight years working on transit-oriented upzoning legislation in California, from SB 27 and SB 50 to the successful passage of SB 79 in 2025.
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Guest: Aaron Eckhouse
Regional Planning Program Director, California YIMBYAaron has spent eight years working on transit-oriented upzoning legislation in California, from SB 27 and SB 50 to the successful passage of SB 79 in 2025.
Key Takeaways
Historic Achievement: First successful statewide transit-oriented upzoning after 8 years of attempts
Narrow Victory: Passed by one vote on multiple occasions—every vote counted
Political Reality: Bill was trimmed significantly to secure passage; expansion may come if it proves successful
Implementation Timeline: Most provisions take effect July 1, 2026; some penalties delayed until January 2027
City Options: Jurisdictions can create their own qualifying plans or delay implementation for certain areas
Practical Guidance: Developers should focus on sites that can be built lot-line to lot-line to maximize density bonus law benefits
Future Cleanup: Expect cleanup legislation to address measurement ambiguities and other technical issues
Key Provisions
Height Limits: Up to 75 feet in Tier 1 zones (highest), with lower tiers at 65 feet and 55 feet
Density: Up to 120 units per acre in top tier zones
FAR (Floor Area Ratio): Up to 3.5 residential FAR in top tier zones
Distance: Applies within quarter-mile and half-mile radii of qualifying transit stops
Effective Date: July 1, 2026 for most qualifying jurisdictions
Where It Applies
Qualifying Counties: Must have 15+ Tier 1 or Tier 2 rail transit stops
Urban Transit Counties: Sacramento, Alameda, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Los Angeles, Orange (soon), San Diego
Transit Types: Heavy rail, light rail, commuter rail, and qualifying Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) lines
City Size Threshold: Half-mile radius provisions only apply in cities over 35,000 population
What It Doesn't Cover
Most of California (limited to major transit counties)
Contra Costa County (specifically excluded)
Santa Cruz County and other non-qualifying counties
Areas more than a mile walking distance from transit
Very high fire hazard severity zones (can be excluded)
Sites with existing affordable or rent-controlled housing (7-year lookback)
Impact Assessment
Potential Benefits
Significant Zone Capacity: Creates substantial new housing capacity near transit
Climate Goals: Reduces car dependency by enabling housing where people can use transit
Transit Ridership: More residents near transit supports system viability
Housing Production: Enables "workhorse" mid-rise multifamily in high-demand areas
Challenges & Limitations
Geographic Restrictions: Only applies in a small fraction of California
Density Bonus Interaction: Complex calculations may limit project feasibility
Inclusionary Requirements: 10% very low income requirement plus local inclusionary ordinances
Distance Measurement Ambiguity: "Closest edge" language may create disputes
Anti-Displacement Provisions: 7-year lookback may block beneficial redevelopment
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00:00:00 - Introduction to SB 79 and Episode Overview
00:03:45 - Key Things to Listen For
00:07:08 - The Eight-Year Journey to Transit-Oriented Upzoning
00:09:31 - Why 2025 Was the Year It Passed
00:12:07 - Why Transit-Oriented Housing Remains Controversial
00:14:34 - Regional Politics: Bay Area vs. Los Angeles
00:20:48 - Where SB 79 Applies: Counties, Cities, and Transit Stops
00:24:18 - Prospects for Expansion and Cleanup Legislation|
00:28:33 - Making Projects Work: FAR, Density Bonus, and Inclusionary Housing
00:35:10 - Transit Agency Development and Revenue
00:38:19 - Concessions and Waivers Under SB 79
00:42:27 - Height Limits and Construction Types
00:45:18 - Distance Measurement Issues
00:48:02 - Anti-Displacement Provisions and Rental History
00:53:26 - Deferred Application and City Opt-Out Options
00:57:16 - Single Family Neighborhoods and Site Assembly
01:02:38 - Bus Rapid Transit Inclusion
01:05:13 - Grading SB 79: Topic Importance
01:07:02 - Grading SB 79: Bill
Effectiveness
01:08:54 - High Resource Area Penalties
01:11:14 - Closing Thoughts and Looking AheadIntroduction
Sibley Simon: Welcome back to the Infill Insiders, where we really dissect each of California's housing laws and new bills to really give you—whether you're a developer or housing professional, or work in city planning, or an activist around housing—a much better understanding of what's working, what's not working, what the difficulties are with these bills, and particularly what are the rights and obligations for all the parties involved in a housing development project under California state law.
So today's content is going to be a little different because we're talking about SB 79, 2025's big transit-oriented housing upzoning bill. The bill really does upzone around certain transit stops. So some of the most prominent transit stops—the big rail stops, or the very best bus rapid transit lines—but only in certain cities within certain counties, so very particular. Around and near enough to those stops, the bill says that now jurisdictions have to allow certain height, certain density, certain size of developments, generally speaking mid-rise apartment buildings, though your four to seven story buildings that are really the most common or workhorse of the multifamily development in more towns, more cities in California.
So really it's California, after a long journey, finally saying, "Look, we've invested in all this transit. We've got to allow a certain density of housing at least right near those transit stops."
The thing is, as I alluded to, it doesn't apply to most California cities or counties—just doesn't apply in most of California at all. And where it is going to apply, it doesn't apply yet. So most bills go into effect on January 1st in the year after they're passed. While this is now California law—it being 2026 now—most of its provisions in any given place are not coming into effect until July, some next year. And in some jurisdictions, it'll be an unknown point in the future until they qualify. And in others, it will definitely be a few years hence before this bill comes into effect in certain jurisdictions.
Because of that, nobody's about to use it right now, but we can start to look toward it. In fact, the folks who are going to use it first are going to be cities that will qualify soon under this bill, but who have the option to write their own qualifying plan—something to accomplish something very similar, but do it a little bit differently in the way they see is right for their city. So the first folks, and I hope you'll help spread this podcast to elected officials in local jurisdictions or city staff who might be considering whether in just a few months here, really acting pretty rapidly, they're going to make a transit-oriented upzoning plan that they feel is better for the city, but accomplishes the same things as SB 79 accomplishes.
We don't even know for sure in places where it's definitely going to take effect, what the rules will be because those jurisdictions may decide to do their own version. So all of that has meant it's a little more speculative, but it is time to be understanding it if you're thinking of using it in the future, because it certainly could be transformative in certain places.
And so what I did is I went and found and caught up to in person, Aaron Eckhouse, who we had on the podcast in the last episode. Aaron's regional planning program director for California YIMBY. And most notably, that has meant that for eight years, he has worked on this concept of the different bills, trying to do transit-oriented upzoning in California that had been submitted into the legislature during that time. And now finally, this one has gotten passed. So he knows a lot about the policy, the politics, why it is what it is, what's been thought through well, what hasn't been. And so we're going to talk that through as more insight on the details of this bill.
Key Things to Listen For
Sibley Simon: But before we switch to that conversation, I'm just going to give the list of the things that I think you should most listen for if you want to consider using or you're going to be reviewing projects that are using SB 79. Or if you're going to be an activist looking at what we still need to do with legislation or understanding what might work here.
Really, the top things are:
First of all, where it applies. So as I mentioned, which counties and then which cities within that county and then which transit stop and what tier those transit stops qualify as under SB 79. And then what distance from those transit stops a site needs to be to be affected by this legislation—different distances, it may have different effects on density—and then particularly how the distance is defined or ill-defined in this law and whether that presents some risk depending on the site.
Then once all that is sorted, site-specific things like whether there's been any housing on the site would really mean that someone needs to dive deeply into the anti-displacement provisions here, even if there's been housing in the past, to see what that means under this bill.
And then we've got a few other things. Something we don't go into very much in this video, but I really want to highlight now very quickly to folks that is very important: FAR is used in here. We talk about that floor area ratio. It plays a really important role here because under SB 79, now we've got a new wrinkle on bonus density where not all of bonus density law applies.
And so to see a project that really works on a given site, you need to understand: can you develop the whole site? If not all of the site is buildable, it may need to do something to the site before you do a project for it to be able to work financially under SB 79. So that's something to watch out for. It's really made for sites that can be entirely built on.
And then also really dive into and understand this particular version of FAR because it is a different version, a different floor area that's used than is often used in local codes, in local government. And that I guarantee you will be missed by some developers and some city planners. And so to really make a project that works well, you have to dive into this definition of residential floor area, what's included, what isn't, what that means for the FAR calculation, what that means for density.
Those are some of the key topics for using SB 79, but I hope you'll enjoy this more thorough conversation about how we got here. Last thing I'll mention, as we say in here, there's probably going to be cleanup legislation or tweaks or new changes down the road. So if you're looking at this, don't just read the bill that was passed in 2025, but also keep an eye on changes that may be coming to it as well. Hope you enjoy it.
The Eight-Year Journey
Sibley Simon: SB 79. Lots of folks have been doing victory laps, which is great because this was a long time in coming. And we're going to do a little bit of that because it's so important and such a big accomplishment. But at the same time, we're going to really look more at some of the details and what some of the opportunities and challenges are to people trying to use it. But first, you have a long history of working toward this achievement of transit-oriented upzoning in California. Why don't you just tell a little bit of that story?
Aaron Eckhouse: Yeah, this has been an eight year project for me personally. I started working for California YIMBY in 2018. I'd been a volunteer in the YIMBY movement. I'd been to Oakland, Yimbytown. I'd heard about SB 27—so the first big statewide transit-oriented zoning reform bill being introduced. I was like, "Oh my gosh, this is like the biggest piece of legislation in this country since Obamacare. I want to do something with this." So I reached out to California YIMBY. I offered to volunteer and also told them, "Hey, you know, I have organizing experience. I'm active in the movement with East Bay for Everyone if you're looking to hire someone."
So I started—what year was that? That was 2018. So February of 2018. SB 27, I think was introduced December of 2017. February of 2018, I joined California YIMBY doing organizing work in San Jose, Marin County, because that was where the committee chairs we needed to reach were. I guess Senator Rice from Sonoma County, but this covered Marin.
And yeah, I had—so I was there through SB 27, which didn't make it very far, but it lit an idea in people's heads. We came back the next year with SB 50, which came heartbreakingly close. I mean, I learned like these first few years, I wanted all the different ways that a bill can die in the California legislature. I'm sure there's still a few more. But the simple ones—you could just not get the votes in committee. We were one vote short on the Senate floor for SB 50.
Sibley Simon: Oh, I can remember that.
Aaron Eckhouse: Yeah. So then it was a few years of working on other things, but this was always something that we felt is such an important piece of housing, climate, transportation, all of that—having more housing near transit, removing the super low density zoning that some of these cities hold onto near transit.
Why 2025?
Sibley Simon: And so that was the first couple attempts at the transit-oriented upzoning. Why 2025?
Aaron Eckhouse: You know, I'm still not entirely sure, honestly, but I think the abundance narrative was really helpful for us in 2025. You know, this idea of democratic governance needing to show that we can address the real problems that we have in California and other democratic states. I think that was an idea that caught hold among California policymakers.
I think the ideas have had time to sink in, and it was obviously still very controversial, but it was less absurd to people. And then I think there were some high profile examples of cities not sticking with their local housing element zoning in a way that I think the legislature was looking at—for example, Los Angeles. I don't want to pick on LA. They do some good things, but also the total exclusion of single family zones from their low rezoning. I think the legislature was not expecting that.
Sibley Simon: So yeah, LA was one of the early cities in the state to give them some credit to do some transit-oriented upzoning.
Aaron Eckhouse: Yeah, I think there are times we talked about these bills as like "LA transit-oriented communities, but statewide and covering the whole area"—it's just a portion of it.
Why Transit-Oriented Housing Is Politically Difficult
Sibley Simon: Right. In the intervening years, though, we've passed all kinds of big housing laws, some of which went from controversial ideas to really getting passed. Some of them passed by big margins in some cases. A little bit on this story, though, of this—I mean, seven years from when you started on it to getting passed this year, basically, or seven and a half years. You really—SB 50, the second attempt, which was early on still in that seven years—it started in the Senate and lost in the Senate by one vote. Right? So got through some committees, got to a full Senate vote and lost by one vote.
And then I think it's five years later, whatever, here we are getting it passed. But SB 79 passed by one vote on three separate occasions—if not four.
Aaron Eckhouse: I think there was one time that we had votes to spare.
Sibley Simon: But there was at least one Senate committee that was by one vote. There was a Senate floor vote. There was one vote, an Assembly vote that was by one vote. The equivalent things we can look at is like the Senate floor and we're only getting two votes in five years. Part of my saying that is we actually had such a pro-housing legislature. And of course there's limits and there's concerns on different topics. Why is this dense housing just in a tiny, tiny fraction of the state, just closest to our biggest, most expensive to have already been created transit stops—why is that still so challenging?
Aaron Eckhouse: I think the biggest taboo and challenge in housing politics, certainly in California, is allowing apartments in places that don't already have apartments. So if you look at some of the streamlining stuff that passed, or if you look at some of the stuff with density bonus law that has happened—pretty soon to be in impact and absolutely, I would say huge impact. Yeah. But those are all about streamlining or allowing more apartments in the places where apartments are already allowed.
AB 2011 was a pretty big fight actually to allow apartments in commercial zones. Right. And that was, I think, a little less scary to people because the image that the opponents always present—right?—is the tower. It's like five or six stories next to a single family home. And this is to them the most terrifying and terrible thing that could ever be. There are apartments on this block. I don't think I've ever lived in California in a neighborhood that was exclusively single family houses. I think they've all been a mix of apartments, houses, everything in between.
Sibley Simon: Our multifamily zones already have an edge that often is then next to single family. So plenty of people experience that, but some people don't want more of that. Fine. You can understand that. But yes, it wasn't literally in the middle—AB 2011 was changing, you know, the canonical example of strip malls or something. It's allowing it where strip malls already are on busy streets, commercial. You know, if you have a house right next to that, you're already next to some random commercial use. Now it's going to be apartments. Yeah. You know, that was a battle, but okay, I see what you're saying here. You're saying actually taking single family home-zoned areas, some limited—very limited in scope and just very surgically certain places—but nevertheless, some single family home-zoned areas and allowing multifamily. And if you feel like that's the thing that's hard to get even more votes on than right around half.
Aaron Eckhouse: Yeah. I think that is the hardest thing I think in housing land use politics—is breaking through that barrier.
Regional Politics
Sibley Simon: Interesting. The other—and that makes so much sense. I believe you, you're in it. The other layer that must be there though, is if you look at the votes, it passed strongly in the greater Bay Area. It was about 50-50 in most of California. And then it lost strongly in LA area. And unfortunately, it won by just barely more in the Bay Area than it lost in LA. And that was the difference. So I get your theme in general, why it's a hard policy to sell, but why is it such a losing proposition in LA area—even more than in rural California or Central Valley or in a whole bunch of other cities in California that aren't in the Bay Area?
Aaron Eckhouse: Honestly, I'm not sure. I will say it's been a pattern throughout the history of this bill. Obviously, we're fortunate—we have some really great housing champions here from the Bay Area. Senator Wiener carried this bill now three times. Third time was a charm.
It is interesting though. I think there's a way in which LA has been a more challenging environment, I think, for the YIMBY message. There was a way in which we still see the greater challenges in Los Angeles. And there's also a way in which progress in Los Angeles is what moved us—got us those like needed margin.
Sibley Simon: Yeah. Okay. Sure. Like maybe that was the difference between then and now.
Aaron Eckhouse: When you think about the LA City Council vote, it was I think very notable that there were members of the LA City Council who were willing to stand up and vote against the city's opposition. And I don't think it means that all of them were people who supported SB 79. But the message that sent, I think—if you look at the members of the assembly who voted for it from Los Angeles, they line up pretty well with the members of the LA City Council who voted against the resolution of opposition.
Where SB 79 Applies
Sibley Simon: It does apply—it's going to apply in most of California's major transit systems and most of the stops in those systems, but not everywhere. And some places where it's going to apply, it will apply as of different dates. So it kicks in certain cities that are within certain counties. It kicks in in July of this year. Unincorporated areas—like I don't know here, we're in East Bay. So someplace like Castro Valley. Okay. Or Cherryland. I don't know if any of Cherryland is close enough to the BART stop to be in this—might be within half a mile. Part of it, you know, that's not going to kick in until the next housing element cycle.
Which means ironically here for our discussion, LA will kick in first—LA County, unincorporated LA County will kick in at stops first and then the Bay Area, etc.
And so there's when it starts applying that varies in different places, but you have to be—for a transit stop, it's got to be not only of a certain frequency and classified either as Tier 1 or Tier 2 based on light rail or heavy rail and frequency. But then it's got to be in a county that has more than 15—or more than 15—such transit stops, Tier 1 or Tier 2 transit stops in that county.
Aaron Eckhouse: It's specifically rail.
Sibley Simon: They're all rail. Yeah.
Aaron Eckhouse: That's the idea—we wanted to capture places with a real transit network and not just a stop here, a stop there.
Sibley Simon: Although famously, at some point it was edited to be over 15 specifically to exclude Contra Costa County.
Prospects for Expansion
Sibley Simon: Do you think—what do you think, especially given how tight this was getting it passed—just randomly not holding you to this—but what's your prediction as to when it could be expanded? Sometimes like examples, like ADU laws were 10 years in or so, and we're still passing more every year.
Aaron Eckhouse: I think cleanup and expansion are very different things. That's right. Yeah. So I think cleanup we'll see. I think we have a hearing next week, actually. There's going to be cleanup stuff in the works.
I think expansion—who knows, but I think it's also going to depend on what happens with the bill, right? Like I think the path, for example, to having Contra Costa included in the bill is if it works well and is delivering housing in the parts of the Bay Area where it applies, and then political representatives from Contra Costa County say, "Well, hey, we also want transit-oriented housing here in Contra Costa County. Why are we being left out?"
Because I think there's a way in which there's a narrative of "oh, they're let off the hook," but there's also equally true a narrative of they're missing out on an opportunity to create housing in a great location for housing. And so that I think is how we will get expansion—is if it works and we see it working, and then there's a political push from within the places that it doesn't cover now. They're like, "Well, hey, we want transit-oriented housing. Let's find a way to bring SB 79 to"—whether that's Contra Costa, Sonoma, San Bernardino County. Who knows? But we'll need some political buy-in from those places.
Making Projects Work
Sibley Simon: Let's dive into some of the specifics of the bill. So in these Tier 1—more frequent heavy rail transit—Tier 2, people can look up exactly what rail lines and stops are going to qualify as each of those things. But then you've got within a quarter mile and within a half mile. And there's various exclusions like the half-mile radius doesn't apply in cities less than 35,000 people.
Once it applies, then there's areas within, say, quarter mile straight line radius that are where a project can be up to 75 feet where the local jurisdiction can't limit a project to less than 75 feet, 3.5 FAR, and 120 units per acre. And then there's different tiers below that—65 feet and correspondingly lower other values of those metrics, 55 feet, etc.
I think fundamentally, I don't want to run this by you—I think as I read this, there was genuine attempt to make it fit with density bonus law. So for example, there's those height limits. Well, they're not limits. There's nothing in this bill that actually limits height, but assuming that a local jurisdiction doesn't explicitly allow a taller height, then your height limit's going to be those numbers I was just mentioning. So in the highest zone, 75 feet.
And yet the residential square footage as defined FAR is 3.5 and certain units per acre. And if you work those out, you know, probably to use the whole height, you would use density bonus law to get that because the other two parameters—the units per acre and that residential density FAR—probably are going to be a greater limitation in many sites unless you're just building on part of the site.
The core challenge, one of the core challenges to the usefulness of this, is unfortunately, today, it's just so hard to get projects to pencil out. And that's its own separate problem. Zoning is one thing, cost is another thing. And we need to work on tackling that. But the reality on the ground today is in most parts of California, it's hard to get multifamily to work at all. In the higher rent areas where it can work out, those places are highly correlated with places that have inclusionary ordinances for doing affordable housing.
And unfortunately, today with the cost, it takes way more market rate units than it used to to pay for one affordable unit. And so really in most cases, those inclusionary ordinances have existed since before construction and development costs went up 60% in the last seven years or so. To even get on the board of meeting the inclusionary requirement, which is explicitly still in place from this bill, you need to use density bonus law to do that.
Aaron Eckhouse: Oh, yeah, I think it'd be hard without getting a try.
Sibley Simon: That's right. And there's affordability required in this bill in and of itself as well. So if you didn't happen to be in a jurisdiction with an inclusionary ordinance, one comes along in this bill.
If I think carefully about how to use this, if you've got a nice relatively flat rectangular parcel somewhere where you're willing to build essentially lot line to lot line, then I think those numbers work out generally good. I do think as when I read this fully with the developer's eye on it, I read this as the state legislature is telling me to do a lot line to lot line development, not have upper story setbacks, and not use modular construction.
Aaron Eckhouse: So why not modular?
Sibley Simon: The heights are not there for that. So 75 feet is probably meant to be five over two. And generally you would do that. But the wood frame modular is usually 11 feet to the story. Plus to do over two, the podium, usually your first floor is like a 15 foot.
Aaron Eckhouse: So you need 81?
Sibley Simon: Yeah, something like that. You need plus you need a couple feet for a parapet at the top, which usually gets counted in the height. So you need to be able to tack a couple feet. And then now a lot of great projects—the most efficient project is five stories wood frame, no commercial in it. So no podium. And that is great. But to use modular again, you probably want 57 something just to have a little wiggle room there.
Anti-Displacement Provisions
Sibley Simon: The one other substantial thing in here that will exclude some places is the site can't have had—anytime in the last seven years—can't have had more than two units on it where any units are affordable or rent controlled. And either have already been demolished or the project would demolish them.
Aaron Eckhouse: It has a seven year look back, right?
Sibley Simon: Seven year look back. I do think in the extreme cases, that's really a shame. Because like really if there's five units and one of them's an affordable unit—and separate provisions mean that people have to be given the opportunity to live in a like-kind unit at an affordable rate in a new project. But really, you can't demolish those five units to build a 100% affordable, 100-unit transit-oriented project.
I mean, again, I'm intentionally saying an extreme case. I'm not saying there shouldn't be some degree of line on this, but in extreme cases where no matter what you're creating and how good it is and how close to transit, you can't—to me, that's extreme—even no matter how well you take care of the people who are living in those five units.
Aaron Eckhouse: I 100% agree. And this is something we've really—I mean, this is a problem in California housing law that goes beyond SB 79. And it's also actually—I can show you five different California housing laws that have five different standards.
Sibley Simon: Exactly. And this one creates its own.
Aaron Eckhouse: I think this is something that we're going to have to work on. It should actually be possible to replace existing apartment buildings with new ones. And it makes sense to have safeguards there. You're not evicting people willy-nilly—if their house is being demolished for a new building, that they have a place to go during construction, they have a place to go after construction is done. All that's really important. And we have state laws to do that.
But I think it's reasonable—we should protect people, but I don't think we necessarily are acting even in the best interest of tenants if we say, "Yeah, your apartment building that's seismically unsound and subject to mold intrusion and doesn't insulate in the summer or winter—has to stay there forever."
Sibley Simon: If I was in that affordable unit on that property, I want my rights met and not to be treated badly—really important. And what am I going to do in the meantime? We've got to sort that out. But if I can get real relocation expenses and have rent somewhere else during construction and get to move back into a brand new affordable unit, probably I would want to do that.
Aaron Eckhouse: I think that's a good outcome. And people should at least have the ability to say yes to that.
Grading SB 79
Sibley Simon: Let's finish up. The last thing we do on state housing law here is score it in two ways. So first way is the topic that this is tackling. How important is it? I may have an unbiased opinion since it has almost defined your career as a housing—this one here you are. You get to—let's say one is the most important and five is not that important of a topic. But specifically, let's say in terms of helping solve California's housing crisis, where do you put the importance of this topic?
Aaron Eckhouse: Very high. I think this is just—the amount of zone capacity we're looking at here is really substantial. If we can convert even a small fraction of that, we're looking at a lot more housing and also really well-located housing. I believe this is a one.
Sibley Simon: Yeah, I could probably debate you on whether it should be a one solely on the grounds of capacity, because this is limited areas and there could be topics—and there are topics like density bonus law or other things that I think do add more zone capacity. But if there's one thing being a housing developer for the last 11 years has radicalized me on, it's cars. Because I am all about housing for people. And it turned out that's made me a lot less interested in housing for cars than I even was when I started.
And so I put this as a one because not only is it big—I'm not sure it's in my biggest category in terms of amount of production—but it is top top notch in terms of the value of that production as some of the very most important housing we should do. And just so obvious, like the more we can not only have housing, but housing for people who want it that is less car reliant, just like climate goals, improving the community, all the things—helping transit get used, which is a part of having more transit. We can't—as we scale our housing dramatically, hopefully—we can't scale our streets and roads dramatically, just can't be done in our urban areas. So this is the number one priority type of housing for me. So I put this as absolutely a one in importance.
Where we might differ a little bit is then on the grade—effectively a letter grade—where would you put it on how well this particular bill as it's written today solves that problem?
Aaron Eckhouse: You asked me like—there's no judgment. I think it's good. I think there are things we had to do that hurt it. I think there are probably mistakes we made in the process. I think it's a good solid bill—room for improvement. But certainly, I hope that it is useful. I'm going to give it a B.
Sibley Simon: Yeah, I think no doubt it's going to be useful in its current form. I'm going to give it a C there, because I would ding it like half a grade for all the stuff that is like in-transition cities or can be used as ways to fight and delay and argue about details that make you pull out your hair or stress that your project might not get approved.
But I think, you know, I want it in more places. I want everywhere we have heavy or light rail, not just these counties. I want it at all major transit stops, even even a little bit more than half a mile because bikeable and all this stuff. I feel like this is a huge big step. I just want even more when it comes to the need for transit-oriented housing. I want bonus density height. I want all this stuff.
No question, huge step forward. I've never argued against that. If there's one thing I could have in a bill in 2026, maybe this wouldn't be it. But in my top five would be: let's double this. So that's why I have to—even though I wasn't in the middle. And I know this might have been the best bill that could possibly get passed on this topic in 2025, because it needed every single vote that it got. So I'm very happy with it in that context, but nevertheless, want more.
Housing Accountability Act Penalties
Aaron Eckhouse: You're reminding me of one other interesting piece of the bill that I think people who are using it should be aware of, because it's definitely about in-transition cities. There's a fun little provision of this—for specifically projects in high resource areas, which is going to be a lot of them. It's the places where economically they make the most sense, where you can support the inclusionary zoning.
The city, if they deny the project in a high resource area, they are subject to greater penalties under the Housing Accountability Act. The penalties in the Housing Accountability Act already exist, but it triggers them faster. It places a higher burden on the city to justify their action. And so that doesn't go into effect until January 1 of next year.
Sibley Simon: 2027. Yeah. So it's a one year delay on that.
Aaron Eckhouse: But something I think for anybody who is using SB 79 in a high resource area, really important to be aware of, because even just shifting the negotiating posture—hey, if you jerk us around, it's costly.
Sibley Simon: Yeah, not only more penalties, but also, they're just presumed to be in trouble if they deny it. So they have a very high legal burden to turn that around. They're not going to—they're going to lose almost certainly.
So the delay is fine because you can't submit an application for this until July 1st anyway. You're not going to get denied by a city council before January 1st of next year. Most likely that effectively applies as soon as the rest of the bill, from my point of view.
And I just think—yes, that is needed because we do see cities saying "so sue me." They absolutely see that—even from cities that are supposedly jurisdictions that in a lot of ways you would count as fairly pro-housing. We still get that.
I think we need more of that across the board. So good point. I think it's great that it's in this. A lot of times that kind of change comes later when there have been fights. So it's pretty cool to see because we were able to take—the legislature was able to take—the learnings and the fighting and the denying of state housing law that cities have done on other topics and saying, "Well, look, of course some of them—a few of them, not most, but a few—are going to do it on this." Anyway, let's just make it clear up front. I really like that because we hear so much in the legislature, "Well, let's see how it works."
Aaron Eckhouse: We have eight years of learning to apply that was brought to bear in this bill. And so there's more that we're going to learn. I'm very excited for July. I advocated that we should have the start date be July 9th—7/9 for SB 79. But I appreciate that's just very—curious to see how it plays out. And hopefully, by July, you'll have found some ways to use it.
Sibley Simon: Yeah, our top focus of our work that moves forward quickly is in Santa Cruz County. So not there, but we'll definitely look and see if we can figure something out. It's exciting. I didn't think we were necessarily going to use AB 2011. And then we found a site, did it, and built an affordable housing project that's under construction now. So absolutely, it's going to be great. Thank you.
Aaron Eckhouse: Yeah.
Sibley Simon: All right. Thanks. Want more? I'm sure. Yeah, I'll take it.
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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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Questions & Ideas: insiders@workbenchbuilt.com
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California | State Housing Laws | Infill Development | Santa Cruz | Housing Santa Cruz County | California Affordable Housing | Affordable Housing Developer | Support Affordable Housing | Build Affordable Homes | California Living | Housing For All | Affordable Living | Housing Solutions | Community Development
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