MEETING DATE:
APRIL 22, 2025
SUBJECT:
Title
RESOLUTION NO. 2025-9428 - LEGISLATIVE REPORT
Body
Recommendation
Recommendation
ADOPT a resolution taking a position on pending legislation in the California State Legislature and projects of local impacts.
Body
Relevant Council Strategic Theme
Planning for the Future
Good Governance
Introduction
The City Council adopted the 2025 Legislative Platform to guide the consideration of state and federal bills that affect City operations. Over 2,300 bills were introduced. May 2, 2025, is the deadline for bills to be moved out of policy committee. Staff, lobbyist consultants and Cal Cities are currently reviewing all the legislation that has been introduced or amended in this session.
Discussion
This report provides updates on legislation introduced in the 2025 legislative session. Staff will continue to monitor these bills, and others and will collaborate with Cal Cities and our lobbyist teams on future City Council consideration for official positions on introduced legislation. Policy committees have set hearings, and in the coming weeks will complete their review of all introduced bills.
The League of California Cities has sponsored 15 bills in this legislative cycle. Staff are reviewing these bills and are developing recommendations for which bills to present to Council for positions or letters of support. There are several bills that have connections to the City’s 2025 Legislative Platform and could be places where the city can support Cal Cities legislative agenda. Staff continue to review these bills and will make recommendations at a future City Council meeting.
On April 3, 2025, Cal Cities took an official position of OPPOSE on SB 79 (Wiener) Transit-oriented Development. SB 79 overrides the state’s own mandated local housing elements by forcing cities to approve transit-oriented development projects near specified transit stops - up to seven stories high and a density of 120 homes per acre - without regard to the community's needs, environmental review, or public input. SB 79 provides transit agencies. Mayor Jones sent a letter opposing this bill to Senator Wiener, Cal Cities San Diego regional representative along with Cal Cities lobbyist. Staff have included SB 79 on the position list below, with a recommendation that Council to take an official position of opposition.
Bills have until May 2, 2025, which is the deadline for policy committees in both houses to hear and report on bills introduced in their respective house of origin. At this time, based on the bill’s most current form, staff are recommending positions on the following proposed bills.
Looking forward, the Governor’s office is currently working on the May Revision for the state budget. Staff anticipate that this will be released in mid-May, and they will work with the lobbyist consultant, and Cal Cities to determine areas of concern. The May Revision will be similar to the proposed budget released in January, however initial tax returns have come in higher than projected, which may change how some funds are allocated. Additionally, there may be some budget cuts in areas more reliant on federal funds, due to uncertainties at the federal level.
In March, a bipartisan group of legislators unveiled the Fast Track Housing Package - a “suite of more than 20 bills aimed at making housing more affordable by slashing red tape, removing uncertainty, and drastically diminishing the time it takes to get new housing approved and built.” The package targets five key “bottlenecks that delay housing development”-application, CEQA compliance, entitlement, post-entitlement, and enforcement. The majority of these bills do not yet have a Cal Cities approved position, however for those that do, that position is noted.
|
Subject Area |
Bill Number |
Author |
Bill Information |
Cal Cities Position |
|
Application: |
|
|
|
|
|
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AB 1294 |
Haney |
Establishes a statewide uniform application for housing projects that are compliant with local laws, creating consistency across jurisdictions and ending the practice of some jurisdictions dissuading projects from even applying by asking for costly and unnecessary studies and materials. |
N/A |
|
CEQA: |
AB 609 |
Wicks |
Creates an exemption from the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) for housing projects that are compliant with local laws and in environmentally friendly locations, thereby greatly reducing risks and increasing feasibility for these projects. |
N/A |
|
|
SB 607 |
Wiener |
Incorporates several important reforms to CEQA that would benefit housing projects, including focusing analysis, expanding exemptions, and strengthening the determinations of lead agencies to allow exemptions. |
N/A |
|
Entitlement: |
|
|
|
|
|
|
AB 357 |
Alvarez |
Exempts student housing developed by a public institution of higher education or a qualified nonprofit from review by the Coastal Commission, allowing California’s colleges to build student housing more efficiently and affordably. |
N/A |
|
|
AB 920 |
Caloza |
Requires cities with a population of 150,000 or more to have a centralized application portal for all permits across departments and allow tracking in real time of applications. |
N/A |
|
|
AB 961 |
Avila Farias |
Extends the sunset for the successful “California Land Recycling and Reuse Act of 2004” (CLRRA), which provides liability protections to promote the cleanup and redevelopment of blighted contaminated properties. |
N/A |
|
|
AB 1007 |
Rubio |
Expedites the approval of housing by shortening the time frame for state and regional agencies to approve or disapprove applications for housing development projects for which they are a responsible agency, but not the lead agency. |
N/A |
|
|
AB 1276 |
Carrillo |
Increases certainty for housing developers by locking in the rules at the time of application with regards to regulations and requirements made by state and regional agencies and requires those agencies to use a “reasonable person” standard when they are considering whether a housing project is consistent with an applicable regulatory plan. |
N/A |
|
|
SB 328 |
Grayson |
Expedites the remediation and reuse of contaminated sites by placing timelines on the Department of Toxic Substance Control (DTSC) to respond to permit requests for housing projects and caps their fees for reviewing the remediation of sites that were not contaminated by the project sponsor. |
N/A |
|
|
SB 489 |
Arreguin |
Plugs gaps in the permitting process by requiring state and regional agencies to post their application requirements online, and by ensuring that all decisions are either covered by the “shot clocks” included in the Permit Streamlining Act or post-entitlement permit statutes.” |
N/A |
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|
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SB 677 |
Wiener |
Improves the efficacy of two major housing bills, including removing provisions that have hampered the uptake of the by right duplex and lot-splitting provisions of SB 9 (Atkins, 2021) and increasing the feasibility of projects subject to the by right provisions of SB 35 (Wiener, 2017). |
OPPOSE |
|
Post-Entitlement |
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AB 577 |
McKinnor |
Facilitates cost-savings by removing local inspections on factory-built housing that is already inspected by the State. |
N/A |
|
|
AB 660 |
Wilson |
Expedites the post-entitlement process by allowing third-party review of building permits if they are not reviewed by the local agency in a timely way. |
N/A |
|
|
AB 782 |
Quirk-Silva |
Eliminates unnecessary costs and delays by prohibiting local governments from requiring bonding or other financial assurances related to subdivision improvements that will be privately owned and maintained. |
N/A |
|
|
AB 818 |
Avila Farias |
Facilitates the rapid rebuilding and repairing of housing affected by natural disasters by expediting its entitlement and post-entitlement permits and waiving fees. |
N/A |
|
|
AB 1026 |
Wilson |
Removes a major source of uncertainty from the development process by requiring investor-owned utilities to follow the same rules as local governments in reviewing and approving post-entitlement permits. |
N/A |
|
|
AB 1206 |
Harabedian |
Reduces costs by requiring cities to expedite the building permit approval for housing projects whose plans they have previously approved. |
Oppose unless Amended |
|
|
AB 1308 |
Hoover |
Expedites the post-entitlement process by requiring building departments to provide an estimated timeframe for building permit inspections and allows applicants to contract with private professional providers to undertake the inspection. |
N/A |
|
Legal Rights and Enforcement: |
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|
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AB 610 |
Alvarez |
Ensures that local governments do not make it more difficult to build housing by precluding the adoption of stricter local regulations unless previously contemplated in the local Housing Element. |
Oppose Unless Amended |
|
|
AB 712 |
Wicks |
Facilitates the enforcement of housing laws by increasing penalties for local and state agencies that violate housing statutes, in a manner in keeping with existing law in the Housing Accountability Act. |
N/A |
|
|
AB 1050 |
Schultz |
Helps unlock the redevelopment of underutilized commercial sites by prohibiting private reciprocal easement agreements from prohibiting housing if the site is already zoned for housing. |
N/A |
|
|
SB 786 |
Arreguin |
Resolves multiple ambiguities in housing element law to provide clarity for local governments, project applicants, and courts. |
N/A |
Staff will continue to monitor this package of housing legislation and, in conjunction with lobbyist consultants and Cal Cities, develop recommended positions where appropriate.
Additionally, per request of council, at its April 8, 2025 meeting, staff, with the assistance of lobbyist consultants will be monitoring the following bills:
|
Bill Number |
Author |
Title |
Subject |
Cal Cities Position |
|
AB 87 |
Boerner |
Housing development: density bonuses: mixed-use developments: short-term rentals. |
This bill would define “mixed-use development” for purposes of the Density Bonus Law to mean at least 70% of the square footage of a proposed project designated for residential uses and no square footage of the development designated for use as a hotel, motel, or other visitor-serving purposes. The bill would prohibit an applicant from being eligible for a density bonus or any other incentives, unless the applicant agrees to, and the city, the commitment to record a land use restriction or covenant providing that a unit of development may not be listed as a short-term rental unit |
Watch |
|
AB 306 |
Schultz |
Building regulations: state building standards. |
This bill would, from June 1, 2025, until June 1, 2031, inclusive, prohibit a city or county from making changes that are applicable to residential units to building standards unless necessary as emergency standards to protect health and safety. |
Watch |
|
SB 543 |
McNerney |
Housing development projects: preliminary applications: accessory dwelling units and junior accessory dwelling units. |
Under current law, if the development proponent does not submit this information within 90 days, the preliminary application expires and has no further force or effect. This bill would require that the 90-day period described above reset each time the development proponent resubmits the information. |
Watch |
Environmental Review
The proposed action does not constitute a “project” as defined under Section 15378 of the California Environmental Quality Act Guidelines (California Code of Regulations, Title 14, Division 6, Chapter 3, Sections 15000 - 15387), and is therefore not subject to environmental review pursuant to Guidelines Section 15060(c)(3).
Fiscal Impact
There is no direct fiscal impact associated with adopting the proposed resolution. Unknown fiscal impacts are associated with the bills in Attachment A. A more thorough analysis of each bill’s implementation requirements is needed to demonstrate total fiscal impact.
Attachments
Attachment A: League of California Cities 2025 Sponsored Bills List
Attachment B: Resolution
Attachment C: Draft SB 79 Letter of Opposition
Prepared by: Michael Lieberman, Legislative Analyst
Reviewed by: Phil Scollick, City Clerk/Director of Legislative Affairs
Approved by: Michelle Bender, City Manager