The Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley has released a statewide assessment of the development of housing five years after the implementation of California's Senate Bill (SB) 35 began in 2018.

The bill eased the barriers to housing production for builders, in some cases removing the required review process under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and other policies that had been targeted as key impediments to the effort to meet a crisis that has become the defining issue of the time for embattled local governments, residents, and planning officials.

Statistics revealed that 18,000 new units were able to be developed thanks to the streamlining of nearly a thousand multifamily infill housing projects as a direct result of SB 35. The rate of successful developments peaked in 2020, with a noticeable dip recorded in the past year. The study also found encouragingly that most projects covered by SB 35 were considered 100 percent affordable. 

The law will expire in 2026, making the findings of critical importance as lawmakers look to access separate legislation — including the proposed SB 423 and AB 309 amendments — which might be effective in bringing to the fore the 3.5 million units of housing estimated to be needed when SB 35 was first passed in 2017.

Three projects — the Woodmark Apartments in Sebastopol; the Cannery at Railroad Square in Santa Rosa; and the 11010 Santa Monica Boulevard apartments in Los Angeles from Perkins&Will — were presented as case studies, with observations as to the factors leading to the success of each.

"It’ll be catastrophic if it’s not extended," the report quoted one interviewee as saying, speaking of the still dire need for streamlining, "thinking about going back to the process of going one year or sometimes 18 months for approvals, and how hard that is on everybody, and the staff load required to actually manage all of that — I just don’t think that exists."

Recommendations for further development were also included. The full 42-page study can be found here.