Everything you need to know about California’s SB 79

Pace and scope of SB 79’s impact

• Commenters expect benefits but stress it will be a “slow burn”—multifamily projects and legal changes take years, so no near‑term fix.
• Some see it as a necessary foundation: once the new framework exists, time is the main ingredient.

Root causes of the housing crisis

• One camp blames restrictive local zoning and permitting, not material shortages.
• Another emphasizes immigration and population growth vs. limited housing starts, arguing you can’t have simultaneously: high immigration, strong environmental protections, and cheap housing.
• Others counter that higher-density housing reconciles affordability, climate, and urbanization.

Permitting, regulation, and environmental rules

• Multiple examples of fire‑rebuild areas where permits have taken years; permitting seen as a primary bottleneck.
• Ideas: treat rebuilding as an emergency, increase staffing, or standardize and automate permitting with strict deadlines and auto‑approval.
• Tension between septic/water quality rules and claims of “property seizure via regulation”; some insist environmental protections are justified.

Density, environment, and quality of life

• Strong defense of dense cities as better per‑capita for climate and many health outcomes; suburbs and car dependence described as environmentally harmful.
• Others worry about local “quality of life” and resist forced upzoning near single‑family neighborhoods.

Investors vs tenants and equity concerns

• Some argue SB 79 mainly benefits landlords and developers; skepticism that more supply owned by the same players helps ordinary people.
• Others reply that landlord groups opposed these reforms and that more units, even if rented, directly help overcrowded and displaced residents.

Transit-oriented upzoning and NIMBY backlash

• Many applaud tying upzoning to rail/BRT stations: mass transit “must” be paired with dense housing.
• Fears that tying development to transit will spur opposition to new transit lines or even station closures (Atherton cited as an example).
• Debate over whether new pro‑housing residents will eventually outvote entrenched NIMBYs.

Prop 13 and broader reforms

• Several see SB 79 as necessary but insufficient; long‑term fixes may require revisiting Prop 13, especially for commercial and investment property.
• Others argue Prop 13 repeal is politically near-impossible and wouldn’t magically fix education or affordability.

Governance style and planning analogies

• SB 79 is described both as a highly capitalist boon to for‑profit developers and as a “socialist‑style” planning exercise via statewide housing quotas.
• One side calls for broadly reducing government power to regulate building; another sees state preemption of local zoning as essential.

Legal overreach worries (SB 704 tangent)

• A side thread argues that a separate firearms bill’s broad language could technically cover common building pipes as “readily convertible” barrels, enabling abusive enforcement or nuisance lawsuits; others dismiss this as a crank reading.