, which authorized a “streamlined, ministerial approval process” for multi-family projects in cities that aren’t meeting their state housing mandates.in 2026, but S.B. 423 would extend it for another decade. What’s really got the no-growth cities upset is one short line in the bill language: “Strikes out S.B. 35’s exclusion of the coastal zone.” Existing law requires projects to still gain approval from the slow-growth California Coastal Commission.
Why is this important? S.B. 35 had a measurable impact on the construction of affordable-housing projects. “Between 2018 and 2021, developers proposed about 18,000 housing units statewide under S.B. 35 – including about 13,000 low-income units, according to preliminary data from UC Berkeley’s Terner Center for Housing Innovation. Of those, more than 11,000 qualified for streamlining under the law,” the Mercury NewsAnother significant provision of S.B.
Developers should be free to build more of everything – from single-family houses to apartments – without subjective approval . Few current residents want more congestion, and yet-to-be new residents don’t get a say, so the local default position often is “no”. Councils often force developers to reduce the number of units when they do OK a project. And California Environmental Quality Act lawsuits derail or delay projects.