California Passed Big Housing Bills in 2025. What Does That Mean for Building More Homes?

The California state legislature passed a bevy of blockbuster housing bills last year. Some took aim at the state’s landmark environmental law, which critics argued blocked development for years. Others aim to reshape how housing is built near major transit stops or promise to hasten recovery after a disaster.

As those laws go into effect this year, some housing experts say they mark a seismic shift in attitudes towards the state’s housing affordability crisis and lawmakers’ appetite for solving it.

“2025 was a landmark year on the substance, but I think in many ways, more importantly, the symbolism of achieving some of these major policy changes is really significant,” said Matt Lewis, a spokesperson for California YIMBY.

While many of the new laws focus on creating new housing, tenant rights advocates argue the state needs to do more to keep existing housing stock affordable. Zach Murray, the state campaign coordinator for tenants rights organization Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, said they hope to gain ground for renters this year by advancing bills that stalled in committee in 2025.

“With new construction… any promise of affordability that comes from getting more units is five to ten years down the line,” he said. “We know that folks are struggling right now.”

Keep reading for some of the 2026 laws that will impact housing construction and renters this year:

Reforms to California’s landmark environmental law

Some of the biggest laws to go into effect this year deal with the California Environmental Quality Act, also known as CEQA. The law applies to most developments — think parks, apartments, hospitals and most everything in between — and requires developers to evaluate whether their project negatively impacts the environment, and make changes to mitigate those impacts.

For years, critics argued that CEQA complicated and prolonged the development process, making building more expensive and difficult, and stalling crucial infrastructure projects.

When Gov. Gavin Newsom finalized last year’s budget, he included two bills that exempted certain projects from CEQA review. AB 130 exempts urban infill housing while SB 131 exempts other types of projects, including those related to high-speed rail, childcare centers, wildfire mitigation and advanced manufacturing.

Lewis said the two bills would have likely died in committee in previous years, but as more people, including lawmakers, feel the pinch of the state’s housing affordability crisis, controversial bills have a better chance of getting passed.

“Now Californians are getting increasingly attenuated, not just to the nature of the shortage, but the fact that, at the root, we have to build a lot more homes,” he said.

Reshaping how housing is built near transit

The other big bill to come out of 2025 was SB 79, authored by State Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco. The bill was seven years in the making, with Wiener introducing three versions that all failed to win approval.

Wiener hopes the version that made it across the finish line will help solve two issues: a lack of dense housing near public transit stops and low transit ridership since the pandemic.

It allows apartment buildings up to seven stories tall, if they’re within a quarter mile of certain train stations. The bill also tries to encourage housing development near light rail stations and busy bus stops.

Building more teacher housing

Some laws going into effect this year aim to empower schools to quickly build housing on their land. AB 1021 would make it easier for school districts and other local educational agencies to develop educator workforce housing on property they own.

In a similar vein, AB 648 states that community colleges don’t have to comply with local zoning rules if they are building university housing on property they own.

Emergency rebuilding

Following last year’s Los Angeles wildfires, many lawmakers introduced bills hoping to cut through red tape and hasten reconstruction after disasters. AB 818 requires local agencies to approve or deny permit applications within 10 days of receipt during a local emergency.

AB 1007 reduces the time agencies have to review and comment on development permit applications from 90 days to 45. AB 301 deals with the postentitlement review process, which happens after a project receives approval from a local planning department. It requires agencies to determine whether a permit application is complete within 15 days of receipt and to approve projects within 30 to 60 business days, depending on size.

Renters and property owners

While rent isn’t getting any cheaper across most of the state, renters can look forward to some new protections this year. AB 628 requires landlords to provide tenants with a working refrigerator and stove and to repair or replace them if they stop working.

Following recent government shutdowns, AB 246, also known as the Social Security Tenant Protection Act of 2025, would protect tenants who rely on Social Security payments from eviction, if funds are frozen due action or inaction from the federal government.

Tenant rights advocates have their eyes on the horizon and hope to focus efforts on passing the Affordable Rent Act in 2026, which was introduced last year, but became a two-year bill following heavy opposition from state real estate and landlord groups.

“We’ve been involved in a lot of efforts across the state to bring attention to this,” said Zach Murray of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment. “This is an important tangible step the legislature can take to actually address affordability for renters across California.”

The bill would expand the 2019 Tenant Protection Act to more renters, lower the amount rent can increase each year and make those changes permanent by removing a 2030 sunset date.

Property owners, however, are concerned that more regulation will mean higher costs for small landlords. Adam Pearce, president of the California Rental Housing Association, said he’s excited to see whether the laws impacting new housing construction result in more supply, but worries that more laws for landlords “make it difficult for us to operate.”

“When you make it harder [with] more mandates, it’s the smaller folks that suffer because we don’t have the big purses that can absorb this.”