Most cities in California currently BAN multi-story buildings.
You can’t build apartments. 🚫
You can’t build condos 🚫
Across California, single-family-only zoning districts dominate the land use, even next to transit systems.
SB-79 will make it legal to build apartment buildings near transit including in areas currently zoned only for single-family homes, by allowing up-zoning and rezoning.
The bill will now go to the state Assembly for hearings
https://calmatters.org/housing/2025/04/committee-chairs-housing-policy/
This is the third attempt to pass such legislation. Previous versions of the same bill — SB 827 in 2018 and SB 50 in 2020 — were killed by opposition from angry city councils.
Now the bad news
Senator Josh Becker, who represents Palo Alto, Menlo Park and Mountain View, is a major opponent of the bill. While he voted to advance the bill, he emphasized in an interview that his support hinges on significant changes that would need to be made.
Senator Becker said if this were the final vote, he would not have supported SB 79. “I was clear to the team that I will not vote on this bill on the way back unless the radius has changed” he said.
The bill also proved divisive in Palo Alto, where City Council member Pat Burt described the prior version of the bill as a “one-size-fits-all” proposal that takes the “chainsaw to local zoning.
“We’re talking about 55 feet and 5 stories by right without any parking requirements in an Eichler neighborhood” Burt said at an April meeting, referring to Eichler neighborhoods in Palo Alto that are within half a mile of the San Antonio Caltrain station.
https://www.paloaltoonline.com/housing/2025/06/11/despite-advancing-fate-of-housing-bill-sb-79-remains-uncertain/