Whereas most of the new legal guidelines give attention to creating new housing, tenant rights advocates argue the state must do extra to maintain current housing inventory reasonably priced. Zach Murray, the state marketing campaign coordinator for tenants rights group Alliance of Californians for Group Empowerment, mentioned they hope to achieve floor for renters this yr by advancing payments that stalled in committee in 2025.
“With new development… any promise of affordability that comes from getting extra models is 5 to 10 years down the road,” he mentioned. “We all know that folk are struggling proper now.”
Maintain studying for among the 2026 legal guidelines that may affect housing development and renters this yr:
Reforms to California’s landmark environmental regulation
A number of the greatest legal guidelines to enter impact this yr cope with the California Environmental High quality Act, also called CEQA. The regulation applies to most developments — suppose parks, flats, hospitals and most all the pieces in between — and requires builders to judge whether or not their mission negatively impacts the atmosphere, and make modifications to mitigate these impacts.
For years, critics argued that CEQA sophisticated and extended the event course of, making constructing costlier and tough, and stalling essential infrastructure tasks.
When Gov. Gavin Newsom finalized final yr’s price range, he included two payments that exempted sure tasks from CEQA evaluation. AB 130 exempts city infill housing whereas SB 131 exempts different sorts of tasks, together with these associated to high-speed rail, childcare facilities, wildfire mitigation and superior manufacturing.
Lewis mentioned the 2 payments would have seemingly died in committee in earlier years, however as extra folks, together with lawmakers, really feel the pinch of the state’s housing affordability disaster, controversial payments have a greater probability of getting handed.
“Now Californians are getting more and more attenuated, not simply to the character of the scarcity, however the truth that, on the root, we’ve to construct much more houses,” he mentioned.
Reshaping how housing is constructed close to transit
The opposite huge invoice to return out of 2025 was SB 79, authored by State Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco. The invoice was seven years within the making, with Wiener introducing three variations that every one did not win approval.
Wiener hopes the model that made it throughout the end line will assist clear up two points: an absence of dense housing close to public transit stops and low transit ridership for the reason that pandemic.
It permits condo buildings as much as seven tales tall, in the event that they’re inside 1 / 4 mile of sure prepare stations. The invoice additionally tries to encourage housing growth close to gentle rail stations and busy bus stops.
Constructing extra instructor housing
Some legal guidelines going into impact this yr intention to empower colleges to shortly construct housing on their land. AB 1021 would make it simpler for college districts and different native academic companies to develop educator workforce housing on property they personal.
In the same vein, AB 648 states that neighborhood schools don’t must adjust to native zoning guidelines if they’re constructing college housing on property they personal.
