California Senate Bill 79
California Senate Bill 79, titled the Abundant and Affordable Homes Near Transit Act, is a 2025 California law that legalizes the construction of multi-story multi-family housing within a half-mile of public transit stations by preempting local government control of land zoning in the intervening area.
SB 79 and preceding bills have been authored by state senator Scott Wiener and have been sponsored by California YIMBY, a pro-housing lobbying group, while they have been opposed by local governments, anti-gentrification activists, and suburban homeowners. The bills are written in support of transit-oriented development in response to an ongoing housing affordability crisis in California's largest urban areas.
Wiener first introduced the bill in January 2018 as Senate Bill 827, which would have applied to areas within of frequent transit corridors, including rail stations and bus routes, as well as jobs centers. SB 827 failed to advance from the Senate Transportation and Housing Committee in April 2018, effectively killing it. In 2019 and 2020, Senator Wiener attempted to pass California Senate Bill 50, a revised successor to SB 827, multiple times both in committee and on the senate floor, culminating in an unsuccessful floor vote on January 31, 2020, which resulted in the bill's demise. A light-touch version, Senate Bill 902, passed the Senate in 2020 but died in the Assembly Appropriations Committee. SB 79 was introduced by Wiener in the 2025 session, where it passed in both houses.
The 2021 California HOME Act and 2022 AB 2097, both signed into law by Newsom, accomplished some of the same aims as SB 827 and SB 50, by allowing lot splits of single-family houses up to four units per lot as well as banning parking minimums within a half-mile of transit stops, respectively.
On October 10, 2025, SB 79 was signed into law by Governor Gavin Newsom and is set to take effect on July 1, 2026.
Background
California housing shortage
California housing costs are among the most unaffordable in the United States. In 2018, the median San Jose home cost 10 times the median household income; Los Angeles homes cost 9.5 times; San Francisco homes cost 8.9 times; San Diego homes cost 8.1 times. California is the most expensive state to rent in, in the United States.California has had a housing shortage since 1970 and ranks 49th among 50 states for housing units per capita. The problem has worsened following the Great Recession as housing development fell to 40,000 units in 2009 and has not reached pre-recession levels. California needs approximately 180,000 units per year to match current growth. Slow housing development combined with high housing demand has increased housing costs in every city in California.
The state’s high rent prices have translated into increased homelessness, more households spending half their income on housing, and an exodus of low and middle income households leaving to states with lower cost of living. The housing shortage negatively impacts the Economy of California.
Multiple state laws have been enacted since 1980 to reduce the shortage, with a greater number of reforms being passed since 2017: some reduced the fees and bureaucracy involved in creating ADUs, lot splits and duplexes, while others have added fees to real-estate document recording to finance low-income housing; others incentivized localities to allow higher density development closer to target locations or prevented certain practices by local governments which stifled densification.
When running for governor in 2017, Newsom announced his target of constructing 3.5 million homes statewide by 2025. This would require a quadrupling of the current rate of building to almost 400,000 units per year, a rate the state has not experienced since 1954. By 2023, only about 650,000 permits were taken out for new homes since Newsom had taken office. He revised his 2026 target downward to 2.5 million homes when running for re-election in 2022.
Transit-oriented development
In 2008, Arnold Schwarzenegger signed Senate Bill 375, which encourages transit-oriented development to reduce vehicle miles travelled in the state and to address climate change. The bill was created to help achieve the greenhouse gas reduction goals of the 2006 bill Assembly Bill 32.Existing state law grants the authority for local zoning from the police power in Article XI, Section 7 of the California Constitution, giving cities and counties local discretion in controlling land use. Localities have exercised these zoning powers in residential areas in various ways; while land in California cities has been historically limited to low density housing, city and county governments can allow higher density zoning, if they choose. For example, in 2018, the LA County Metro Board of Directors created the Transit Oriented Communities program after the passage of Measure JJJ in November 2016, which allows for land zoned for commercial development near transit stations to be developed into residential housing, with between 11 and 27 percent of units required to be reserved for affordable housing.
Legislative history
Summary
Senate Bill 827 (2018)
Scott Wiener, a freshman state senator representing San Francisco, introduced Senate Bill 827 on the first day of the 2018 legislative session. Wiener had previously authored Senate Bill 35, a bill to streamline the approval process for residential projects, which was passed by the legislature in 2017.Under SB 827, cities in California would have been required to permit residential buildings of up to in "transit rich" areas near train stations and bus stops. The bill would have also eliminated minimum requirements for parking and prohibited local design requirements that would lower the amount of space in a new development. The bill would have affected roughly 50 percent of single-family homes in Los Angeles and 96 percent of land in San Francisco.
A similar bill, Senate Bill 828, was introduced by Wiener to amend market-rate housing requirements for local governments and avoided much of the controversy that affected SB 827. Another bill, Assembly Bill 2923, was announced in March 2018 and would require the Bay Area Rapid Transit system to adopt zoning standards that would be accepted by cities and local jurisdictions.
The first revisions to the bill were made in late February, adding pro-tenant provisions to prevent demolition of existing housing and other protections. In April 2018, the bill was amended to reduce the maximum height in "transit rich" areas to approximately four to five stories and remove bus stops with non-frequent service outside of peak periods. The bill was brought to the Senate Transportation and Housing Committee in April, where it was rejected by a vote of 6–4.
Senate Bill 50 (2019-2020)
2019
Senator Wiener announced that he intended to introduce an updated version of the bill with a new number, 50, in the 2019 legislative session, and described the bill as the "More HOMES Act". Senate Bill 50 had the same sponsors as Senate Bill 827.Wiener added amendments that exempted counties with populations under 600,000 from transit rezoning provisions in a compromise with Marin County senator Mike McGuire. The final bill required similar rezoning near transit, four-plex zoning statewide, and additional rezoning in "jobs-rich" areas.
In May 2019, Anthony Portantino, chair of the senate appropriations committee, made Senate Bill 50 into a two-year bill with a pocket veto, meaning it would not be eligible for consideration again until the 2020 legislative session.
2020
Senator Wiener reintroduced Senate Bill 50 in January 2020 with additional amendments that gave cities the ability to opt out of its rezoning provisions providing they built the state-mandated amount of housing.Senator Portantino, who had blocked the bill in 2019, objected to not being consulted about amendments to the bill and said Wiener did not adopt suggestions from an alternative blueprint developed by a coalition of Southern California governments. Toni Atkins, president pro tempore of the senate, used parliamentary powers to maneuver the bill out of Senator Portantino's committee to prevent it from being blocked from appearing on the senate floor again.
Following debate in the senate, Senate Bill 50 was defeated on January 31, 2020, after multiple vote attempts garnered at most 18 votes, three shy of the 21 needed to pass into the state assembly. Six senators were absent or abstained from voting.
SB 902 (2020)
After the failure of SB 50, Scott Wiener proposed SB 902, a lighter-touch version of SB 50 which would allow the construction of duplexes, triplexes, and fourplexes by right. The bill would have required approval of 2 to 4 unit apartment buildings on single-family lots, depending on a city's size. The bill was passed in the Senate on June 23, 2020, but died in the Assembly Appropriations Committee.SB 79 (2025)
In January 2025, Wiener introduced SB 79, dubbed as the Abundant and Affordable Homes Near Transit Act, which would require the upzoning of housing within distance of rail and rapid bus stations, allowing for the construction of housing between four and nine stories tall and for developers of such properties to take advantage of existing permit streamlining and density bonus laws.Passage
The bill was passed in both Senate committees on Housing, chaired by Aisha Wahab, and Local Government, chaired by María Elena Durazo, with one-vote majorities despite the opposition of the committee chairs. Wiener personally contacted Senate President Pro Tem Mike McGuire to allow members on both committees to vote against the recommendations of both chairs, an act known as "rolling the chair". On May 23, the bill passed the Senate Appropriations Committee by one vote, with the support of chair Anna Caballero. The Senate voted 21–13–6 in favor of the bill on June 3, 2025, sending the bill to the Assembly for consideration.The bill was passed by the Assembly Committee on Housing and Community Development 9–1 on July 2, 2025, and by the Assembly Committee on Local Government 6–1 on July 16, 2025. The bill was passed on August 29 by the Assembly Appropriations Committee in an 8-6-1 vote, and was passed on September 11 by the Assembly in a 43-19-18 vote. Significant amendments to the bill were made in the Assembly to reduce opposition from labor activists, tenant organizations and municipal governments. In both houses, both support and opposition crossed party lines, with opposition or abstention emanating most from legislators representing districts in Southern California.
The State Senate then concurred with the amended bill on September 12, the final day of session, in a 21-8-11 vote, with Senators Wahab and Durazo having switched their initial opposition to support following amendments providing protections for tenants. The bill was sent to Newsom for his signature.
Unlike his public support and early signature for AB 130 and SB 131, Newsom did not previously indicate whether he would sign SB 79 or other housing bills passed by the Legislature. His participation in an October 3, 2025 Fortnite livestream on Twitch led to moderators of the livestream chat filtering comments supporting or opposing SB 79. In response to a question regarding the bill during the livestream, Newsom stated "It's on my desk & I will be reviewing it on its merits. It's really important housing legislation, and I recognize how important it is."
Newsom signed SB 79 into law on October 10, 2025, along with over 40 other housing bills signed that day, with his signing statement rejecting claims that the bill would impair the ability of residents to rebuild or repair homes impacted by the January 2025 Southern California wildfires.