EXPLAINER: THE FAST TRACK HOUSING ACT
SACRAMENTO, CA (KMJ) — Democrat lawmakers unveiled a package of nearly two dozen bills late last week which are an effort to fix California’s housing crisis by reducing the state’s notorious amount of red tape.
Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland) said “Housing is the number one expense in almost every single household in California. And lack of housing affordability affects every other aspect of our society.”
According Wicks’ office, California is facing a staggering housing crisis, with a shortfall of 2.5 million homes and nearly 200,000 individuals experiencing homelessness.
Studies indicate approximately 80% of low-income households are burdened by rent costs, and are often forced to choose between maintaining stable housing and covering other basic necessities. For many Californians, home-ownership remains out of reach.
One bill would overhaul the entire permitting process for new housing, from the application to the actual construction.
The package also seeking to address delays due to environmental lawsuits.
Wicks believes, if passed, the bill package would be one of the most comprehensive overhauls to California’s housing rules in years.
“Right now, it takes far too long to build the housing Californians need — and that’s a failure of government,” said Assemblymember Wicks. “The Fast Track Housing package is about making our systems work better: clearer rules, faster timelines, and fewer bureaucratic hoops. It’s not about cutting corners — it’s about being honest that what we’re doing isn’t working. This package reflects a broad, bipartisan commitment to saying yes to housing, yes to progress, and yes to a government that helps solve problems instead of creating them.”
Overview of Bills in the Fast Track Housing Package: The package is organized into five different sections that represent the life cycle of housing production – from the first to the last time a project engages with government.
Application: The process of getting the housing project “in the door” to be reviewed by the local government.
- 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. Sponsored by Abundant Housing LA.
California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA): The process of analyzing how the housing project affects the environment.
- 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. Sponsored by CA YIMBY and Bay Area Council.
- 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. Sponsored by Bay Area Council, Housing Action Coalition, Rural County Representative of California, and Prosperity CA.
Entitlement: The process of getting the project approved for construction by the local government.
- 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. Sponsored by the Student Homes Coalition and UC Student Association.
- AB 920 (Caloza): Requires larger cities to have a centralized application portal for all permits across departments and allow tracking in real time of applications. Sponsored by Abundant Housing LA.
- 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. Sponsored by the Bay Area Council.
- 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. Sponsored by CBIA.
- 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. Sponsored by CBIA.
- 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. Sponsored by the Housing Action Coalition and SPUR.
- 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.” Sponsored by CBIA.
- 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). Sponsored by CA YIMBY, the Housing Action Coalition, and LISC-SD.
Post-Entitlement: The process of pulling together the permits necessary to actually build the housing, including demolition, grading, and building permits.
- AB 557 (McKinnor): Facilitates cost-savings by removing local inspections on factory-built housing that is already inspected by the State. Sponsored by SoLA Impact.
- 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. Sponsored by CBIA.
- 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. Sponsored by CBIA.
- 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. Author-sponsored.
- 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. Sponsored by the Housing Action Coalition.
- AB 1206 (Harabedian): Reduces costs by requiring cities to expedite the building permit approval for housing projects whose plans they have previously approved. Author-sponsored.
- 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. Sponsored by CA YIMBY.
Legal Rights and Enforcement: The part of the process where the laws are interpreted and the rights of all parties are upheld.
- 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. Sponsored by CBIA and SPUR.
- 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. Sponsored by CBIA.
- 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. Sponsored by SPUR.
- SB 786 (Arreguin): Resolves multiple ambiguities in housing element law to provide clarity for local governments, project applicants, and courts. Sponsored by Attorney General Rob Bonta.
